She never applied for a loan — but a hard inquiry still hit her credit report
A text from a UWM loan officer disclosing an accidental credit pull is now at the heart of a federal lawsuit.
Tiana Perez, an Oakland, California homeowner, filed suit against United Wholesale Mortgage LLC on March 20, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. She alleges the lender ran a hard credit inquiry without her authorization — and then told a credit reporting intermediary it had her verbal consent.
The filing lays out a scenario that went wrong fast. In December 2025, Perez texted a UWM loan officer named Cyrus Mulitalo to ask about refinancing her home. She shared her mortgage statement and said she was looking for no closing costs or outside fees. The loan officer replied that he would look at getting her "all the bells and whistles" for a refinance.
But days later, on or about December 16, 2025, the loan officer texted Perez to let her know his processor was getting the file together and "may have accidentally ran" her credit. When Perez asked if it was a hard pull, he replied, "I believe so."
According to the filing, Perez never applied for a loan with UWM. She never authorized a credit pull. She was still shopping.
She reviewed her reports from Experian, Equifax, and Trans Union and confirmed a hard inquiry by Credco had appeared on her credit file. A hard inquiry, unlike a soft one, can lower a consumer's credit score — a concrete hit to a borrower's financial standing.
What followed, according to the filing, made matters worse. Perez reached out to UWM and was told the company could not help. She was directed to CoreLogic Credco, which launched a research request. Days later, Credco sent Perez a letter stating that UWM had claimed it accessed her credit report based on her "verbal authorization in connection with a mortgage transaction."
Perez says that never happened. And the loan officer's own text message — acknowledging the pull was accidental — appears to support her account.
The suit alleges violations of both the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act and the California Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act. Perez is seeking actual, statutory, and punitive damages, along with attorney's fees and court orders to have the unauthorized inquiry removed from her credit reports.
No determination on the merits has been made, and UWM has not yet responded to the allegations.
For mortgage professionals, the takeaway here is hard to miss. A preliminary conversation with a borrower — even one who shares a mortgage statement — does not amount to consent for a hard credit pull. And in an era where loan officers and borrowers communicate freely over text, those casual exchanges can quickly become evidence in federal court.
The case is a reminder that the gap between a borrower asking questions and a borrower authorizing a credit inquiry is not a gray area. It is a bright line — and crossing it, even accidentally, can carry real consequences.
