Update: Unfortunately it seems that bumpage is no longer possible, apart from in a few specific instances (e.g Texas). I’m keeping this page up, but it might not be very helpful anymore.
You may have seen the terms: bumpage & choppage used before or maybe their acronyms (B* & C*).
- Bumpage is the process of “bumping” hard credit pulls off your credit report.
- Choppage is when you have the soft credit inquiries “chopped” (e.g removed) from your credit report before you can bump any hard inquiries from your report.
- Splittage is when your credit report is “split” in half, giving you two reports in your name. It’s not possible to tell which data will be on which report or which report a lender will access. Often times people will just call splittage choppage as well, which can be a bit confusing.
Bumpage is possible because consumer reporting agencies (CRA) only give each individuals credit report a certain amount of space to record data. The amount of space given varies from CRA to CRA, but when somebody hits this cap the CRA will remove old data to make way for the new data. This means it’s possible to replace a hard pull (or hard pulls) with a number of soft pulls.
In general data falls off in a FIFO pattern (first in, first out), but not all inquiries will drop off. For example, important inquiries (mortgage loans & insurance inquiries) are coded to stay on for the full two years (although in some cases these do fall off as well).
If you’ve ever been declined for too many recent inquiries on your credit report, you can see why it would be advantageous to bump hard pulls off your credit report. Having hard pulls on your report also causes a decrease in your credit score (these hard pulls stay on your report for a maximum of two years and affect your FICO score for the first year).
Obviously bumping hard pulls off your report with more hard pulls isn’t very useful as you’ll still have a lot of hard pulls on your report. When people talk about bumpage they are talking about using soft credit pulls to bump hard pulls off. Soft pulls do not affect your credit score and should not affect any lending decision.
Contents
Rules
The amount of soft pulls you need will vary based on which credit bureau you’re talking about, here are the rules for each:
- Equifax. requires 85 pulls to bump
- Experian. It’s not possible to bump with Experian.
- TransUnion. requires 66 pulls to bump
Other Negatives
- Old accounts that are no longer reporting could be bumped from your credit report. This is especially bad news if this is your oldest account on file.
What Doesn’t Work?
- All of Equifax’s products no longer work
What Works?
You’ll need a password to access this part of the post, this password has been sent out to our newsletter subscribers. Make sure you check your spam folder (and mark it “not spam”) if you can’t find it. If you’re not a subscriber, sign up now and you’ll also get access to the password in the welcome e-mail.
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The basic premise is to sign up for a credit monitoring service that allows you to pull your reports daily, this will result in a soft pull each time. The problem is that not all of these services work and what does and doesn’t work changes regularly.
Some services will cause choppage which is something you want to avoid at all costs. People subscribed to my newsletter can access more information below with the regular password (I’ve resent this out again for those who have forgotten).
You can count the amount of inquiries you have by using an automatic checker. Just copy and paste your inquiries into one of the following tools:
For more information on how to use these tools & support, please read this CreditBoards thread.
Information On What Services To Use For Each Bureau
- TransUnion
- Smart credit. $24.95 a month Can be used for bumping TransUnion. You have 24 credits in your account, once your close to running out you need to send them an account message to get more credits readded. Usually readded within an hour or two.
- Equifax
- American Express’ Credit Secure (CS). $14.95 per month, you’ll need to need to have an American Express credit card to get access to this product.
- USAA (CCM or CCMP). Sign up for the $12.95 a month service that offers one pull per month, on day two when you refresh you’ll have the option to upgrade and get a daily pull instead. You can also call up and request a cheaper price on their daily pull service.
- My Privacy Matters (MPM) / Eliminate ID Theft. $12.95/month or $140/year, can also add spouse for additional $5 month/$40 year.
- Experian. Remember we said it’s not possible, seriously just give up trying to bump Experian it’s not going to happen.
My recommendation is to start slowly to begin with to avoid any C*. I’d probably recommend Smart Credit for TransUnion & USAA for Equifax the most.
If you do get spiltage with TransUnion, don’t worry too much you can call them up and ask them to merge your two credit files back together. This will usually result in them reinserting your hard pulls though/removing any soft pulls you have.
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Final Thoughts
I’ve bumped before and know a lot of people that still bump. I personally do not feel like the benefits are worth it for the time involved to stay on top of what does and doesn’t work. If I was going to apply for a mortgage or other large loan in the short time then I’d definitely think differently, I’m also at the stage where I’ve applied and received the sign up bonus for the majority of the “good” credit cards out there and have a fairly robust credit report with a high FICO score.
If you’re going to do this, it’s important you understand the risks involved and read up thoroughly on what does and doesn’t work. If you’d like to learn more about bumpage, I’d recommend looking for dedicated threads in any private forums you participate in. Alternatively the best public resource by far is Credit Boards, make sure you read up before asking basic questions (in particular this master thread). People there are happy to help as long as you’ve made an attempt to educate yourself first (and also have done a search for the answer).
Thanks to Andy for suggesting this topic for me to cover. He has won a $5 Amazon gift card for his troubles, you can make suggestions on blog posts or tools you wish existed but don’t here. If we use your idea, you’ll also get a $5 Amazon gift card.
