The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) lets you challenge the information on your credit report using criteria of "completeness and accuracy." This is how the FTC ensures fair credit reporting, its your only weapon in fighting bad credit. If, once you challenge the information, it "is found to be inaccurate or can no longer be verified, the [credit bureau] shall promptly delete such information."

When NCCS goes to work for you the law states that "at a minimum... check with the original sources or other reliable sources of the disputed information and inform them of the nature of the consumer's dispute." In some cases of consumer dispute, "Reinvestigation and verification may require more than asking the original source of the disputed information the same question and receiving the same answer."

Sounds simple, doesn't it? When in reality we have one weapon- the FCRA- that we can use to dispute your credit score, and the credit bureaus have more loopholes than you can count. Fortunately, if a claim is found to be relevant and the credit bureau does not respond within 30 days, they are obligated to remove that specific item from your report at that agency.