The four things a bureau must do when your letter arrives

There are four things a consumer reporting agency must do when your dispute letter arrives, and Section 1681i of the Fair Credit Reporting Act lists them in order. Most people know about the first one. Almost nobody knows there's a third, and the third is where disputes are won.

I read credit files for a living for eleven years, in a room with no windows and no customers, and I can tell you the bureaus know these four. Now you will too.

1. Reinvestigate, free, within thirty days

The statute says the agency shall conduct a reasonable reinvestigation, without charge, to determine whether the disputed information is accurate. Shall is not may. The thirty days run from the day they receive your letter, which is why my mother mailed everything certified and wrote the green-card date on the envelope flap in pencil. Send more information mid-stream and they get fifteen extra days, so send it all the first time.

Which means: they have to look. They can't charge you. The clock is theirs, but you hold the receipt that starts it.

2. Tell the furnisher, within five business days

The agency must notify whoever reported the item — the lender, the collector, the utility — and send along everything relevant you provided. Five business days from receipt.

Which means: your letter doesn't stay at the bureau. It goes to the company that put the item there, and that company gets its own legal duty to investigate. Write the letter for the furnisher as much as for the bureau.

3. Consider what you sent

This is the one nobody knows. The agency must review and consider all relevant information you submitted with the dispute. A paid-in-full letter. A statement showing a zero balance. A police report. If you sent it, they have to weigh it.

Which means: a dispute that says "this is wrong" gets an automated "verified." A dispute that says "this is wrong, and here is the creditor's own letter dated 14 March 2025 saying so" has to be answered on the document. Attach the document. Every time.

4. Send you the results, in writing, within five business days of finishing

Deleted, corrected, or verified — and if anything changed, a free copy of the corrected report, and on request, notice to anyone who pulled your file in the last six months.

Which means: silence is not an answer. No letter by day forty is itself a violation, and it's the one that gets a company's attention when you write to the CFPB.

Step one, and a date

Pull the report you're going to dispute, free at AnnualCreditReport.com, and find the one document that proves the item wrong. Do that by Friday. The letter is step two, and Jenavieve wrote about what happens after it arrives; I've just given you the part of the statute she was too polite to quote.