The right to dispute
Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), you can dispute information in your credit file that you believe is inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable. You can dispute directly with the nationwide credit reporting agencies — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — and the dispute is free.
A dispute is a request for the credit bureau to check a specific item against its source and correct or remove it if it cannot be verified as accurate.
What the bureau must do
When a credit reporting agency receives a dispute, it generally must reinvestigate the item, usually within 30 days, and forward the relevant information to the company that furnished it. The furnisher must investigate and report back.
If the information cannot be verified, or is found to be inaccurate or incomplete, it must be corrected or deleted. When the reinvestigation is complete, the bureau sends you the results.
What happens after
Outcomes vary from item to item. Some disputes result in a correction or deletion; others come back verified, in which case the item stays. Accurate information generally cannot be removed simply because it is negative.
Because reporting is handled separately by each bureau, the same item can be resolved differently across Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. That is why disputes are often worked per bureau.