hard credit pulls are from agencies that are inquiring for loan/mortgage purposes and affect your credit score. Soft pulls are informational like when you pull your own on annualcreditcheck.com or a promotional company, and they don't affect your score.
Hard credit pulls stay on your report for 2 years. They don't affect the score much, usually 2-5 points each, but I shouldn't lose points for something I didn't authorize.
Thanks for the info Joe Bob, that is the kind of info I was looking for...not all of us go immediately to a lawyer
