Right, there are three basic types of credit checks.
Self checks – you are getting your own credit report
Soft checks – CC companies are deciding who to send junk mail to
Hard checks – you apply for a car loan
The first two do not affect your credit score, but the hard check can. I thought that I read a few years back that the so called free credit reports showed up as a hard check. That’s why it was such a big deal when the government set up annualcreditreport.com so that everyone could get a free credit report once a year without having it show up as a hard (or soft) check.