win333, I am impressed by your efforts to understand and take advantage of evolving B processes. Unfortunately, since I live in Experian land, this does not help me. My only option is to freeze Experian, which I have done. If enough inquiries get diverted to EQ in the next round, this may help.

I just wanted to say that I have this image of your tenants coming to pay the rent and seeing you furiously clicking a mouse or typing on a keyboard, and asking someone, "What's he doing? Looking at porn?" Someone more knowledgeable says, "No. He's applying for credit cards."

I think I understand what you're saying. But, I don't understand how to actually implement the strategy. You mention getting many more soft inq of various types from various banks, mortgage providers, insurance companies, etc. Correct?

Assuming the above is right, exactly how would one accomplish this? I saw auto insurance quotes mentioned, as well as lending tree. But can we be sure we'll only get a soft and not a hard?

Bump...any updates on this? I still don't fully grasp how to implement this strategy.

I've read through the thread a couple of times and I'm ready to start B*...

Details
Last month, I signed up for the free one-month trials of TrueCredit through TU (just TU, not all 3) and ScoreWatch through Equifax. I'm guessing neither of these will do B* as desired, but the ScoreWatch service will add at least two Equifax softs, which have stuckage:

Equifax 04/23/08
ND-Equifax 04/23/08

ScoreWatch gives you two free credit report pulls so I'm waiting until my one-month is almost done to see what has changed in the past month. Plus I have my free EQ report from the feds saved for later.

I also signed up for CreditKarma which appears to only bump TU from my readings, which I am not too concerned about but would like to bump as many off as possible while I am at it.

Questions
1. How many services do I need to sign up for in order to b* EQ properly? I was thinking 2 or 3 and was going to do PM123 as one of them.

2. What strategies are being used to avoid choppage? Is there a good time of month to start b* vs. a bad time? Choppage every 50ish days?

3. Insurance companies are adding stuck softs when you get quotes. Should I freeze before I try this or trust that they would pull a hard one?

According to your AOR thread, you used the following to bump EQ:

- TrueCredit (b* and lockage)
- CreditCheckTotal (b*)
- Chase ID Protection (www.chaseidprotect.com) (b*)
- National City ID Protect (b* - TC reseller)
- Credit Diagnosis (b* - TC reseller)

and would have used Privacy Matters 123 (b* - TC reseller) if you didn't let it expire.

Is this correct?

I just bumped all three remaining inquiries off my EQ report today.
It was kind of cool to watch them fall off one by one.

History: I experienced EQ choppage in mid April.
Since about April 22, I've been pulling daily with PM123, TC, Chase Identity Protection and National City Identity Protect.
My EQ report now shows 128 soft inquiries.

Thanks, win33, for this thread!

Checked the EQ again (via CreditWatch Gold) today, I have 1 hard and 144 softs (145 total), in spite of doing multiple pulls yesterday. Count seems to be holding fairly steady. Also noted that my last CWG pull did not result in c*.

I have seen one comment that your inq buffer size may be influenced by (undetermined) other data on the report - don't know if there's anything to this, but it would account for 2Cor521's count being 3 higher than mine and still waiting for b*.

swishyx said:win333 said:even my TU has STUCKAGE!
Stuckage! I win!!!

Sticky inquiry = sticquiry, not to be confused with stinkquiry = stinky inquiry.

Good info Swish... I started my b* on 5/14. I have used/am using:

* 7-day free trial of credit diag - 6 inqs (missed Sunday) CANCELLED
* 7-day free trial of creditchecktotal - 1 inq (limit on free trial membership) CANCELLED
* $9.99 monthly TC offer for all three reports - still in progress
* 30-day free trial of Chase Identity Protection, $11.99 monthly afterwards - still in progress, I might keep it for an extra month to b* EQ to zero
* Free CreditKarma (been doing this since early April)
* 7-day free trial of PM123 - signed up Tue and will try for the $29.95/year offer on Sat, Sun, or Mon (or should I do this on Friday? Are their call centers open on the weekend?)
* Disputing minor errors on TU and EQ (hoping for stuckage inqs)

I still have 5 TU and 11 EQ. Any other services to consider? I thought about NCIP but I don't like the mail aspect of it. I also fear that I might make the TU blacklist soon.

EDIT: Removed free advertising

chocula said:American Express offers Creditsecure. You can pull your reports daily.
Thanks! Just tried it and got this:

We're sorry ...

Sorry we are unable to process your request due to temporary difficulties.

Please contact our Customer Care Representatives toll free at 1-866-617-1893, Monday through Friday 8am to Midnight EST and Saturday 9am to Midnight EST, for futher assistance. We have provided an error code below as a reference when calling our Customer Care center.

Error Code: 790

Thank you for your patience. We appreciate your business!
CreditSecure

They must have seen me coming! I'll try again later.