I contacted a mortgage broker about rates and to receive a good faith estimate for a refinance. The person on the phone asked for my address and SSN. I told him I did not want my credit pulled since I had not made any decisions and had not seen his GFE. He said he needed the info to "lock in the rate" but would not pull my credit. He gave me a verbal rate with no points. Later, I received a GFE with one point disguised as a mortgage broker fee. I told him I was not interested. The next day I checked my credit report and the company had pulled credit without my permission. Do I have any recourse?
A business may access your credit file when they have a legitimate business reason to do so. A loan inquiry is a legitimate reason. In this case however you specifically asked that they not do this. You could complain to the institution, their federal regulator whom they can refer you to, as well as the Federal Trade Commission. You could state your complaint as a general issue or if the inquiry caused actual harm, show some proof of that. If nothing else you may simply tell them you will neither do business with them nor refer anyone else to them, because of this.
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A business may access your credit file when they have a legitimate business reason to do so. A 