Do preapproved credit card offers lower your credit score?

Do preapproved credit card offers lower your credit score?:
Q: My 27 year old daughter often gets mail from credit card companies wanting her to get a card from them. On her recent TransUnion credit report we we saw that tons of those credit card companies have accessed her credit report. We were told that having a lot of those lowers her credit score. How can this be remedied?

A: The good news is that these type of credit report inquiries are known as "soft inquires", and don't affect your credit score. Soft inquiries occur when your credit report is accessed for marketing purposes, in this case to preapprove your daughter for a credit card offer. Soft inquiries will not change your credit score and don't appear on credit reports given to third parties, although some credit bureaus include them for informational purposes on the credit report that they provide to you.

On the other hand, a "hard inquiry" will affect your credit score. Hard inquiries usually happen when you're actively requesting credit and a third party like a lender, landlord or credit card company requests your credit report to grant you that credit. That's why it's not a good idea to apply for too many credit cards within a short amount of time, as it can lower your credit score.

If you'd still like to opt-out of having preapproved credit card offers sent to your daughter, you can do so online at OptOutPrescreen.com. If you want to keep a close eye on her credit reports and be aware of who may be accessing them, think about signing up for a credit report monitoring service like Identity Guard TOTAL PROTECTION®. Right now Identity Guard is offering NextAdvisor readers a free 30-day trial and 3 free credit scores, a no-risk way to try out the service free of charge and cancel within the trial period if it's not for you.