The federal process for forcing a credit bureau and the company that reported an item to investigate information you say is wrong.
Consumer reporting agencies must follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy, and a consumer who disputes an item directly with the agency triggers a mandatory reinvestigation. The agency must generally complete it within a defined period, must forward the dispute and all relevant information to the company that furnished the item, and must delete or correct anything it cannot verify.
The step most often skipped is disputing with the furnisher as well - the lender, collector or other company that supplied the information. Furnishers have their own investigation duties once a dispute reaches them through the agency, and a furnisher that keeps reporting information it knows to be inaccurate is a separate problem from an agency that fails to investigate.
Accuracy is not the only right in this area. The statute limits who may obtain a report and for what purposes, requires notice when information in a report is used against a consumer, and restricts how long most negative information may be reported.
The point at which advice becomes useful is when a properly made dispute has already failed - the item was "verified" without any apparent investigation, or it was corrected and then reappeared. Disputing in writing and keeping proof of what was sent and when is what makes that failure demonstrable, and the statute provides for fees, so the cost of pursuing it is not necessarily borne by the consumer.
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