i got my annual free credit reports today. equifax and experian - check. no negative anything, all my crap is paid on time, all my info is correct.
transunion - boy are they a mess. i've been disputing stuff through them for years. currently they have my dad's birthday on my report, both of my parents' names as aliases of mine, and 4 black marks on my report that belong to them. nothing horrible, but enough that my score has gone from 698 to 652 in a year and a half of making nothing but early payments and keeping debt to credit ratio pretty low. also, i began working at the steel mill my dad worked at 3 years before i was born according to them.
this time they have a nice online dispute setup for everything except the birthdate. i need to mail them a copy of my ID or birth cert with a letter begging them to fix their f-up. hopefully they actually do something this year. not sure who you can report the reporting agency to if they refuse to fix your stuff. it's a bummer that my score goes down due to their errors and not due to anything i did.
You can lawyer up. Credit berkeleyups are a big deal.
FCRA protects you from this, theoretically. There are law firms that specifically fix problems with credit reporting companies.
Or just stop using credit.
"Stop using credit" doesn't help, given how many other things credit scores influence, starting with car insurance (where legal, blahblah), employment, ability to rent a place etc.
@patgizz, I recall Clark Howard recommending to send in disputes about fact on the credit report by old fashioned letter, for some reason they don't get ignored quite as much as online disputes. Not sure how well it works but it may be worth a try. Unfortunately SF1 basically is right about what needs to be done if they won't listen to disputes.
One of the side effects of being the product, not the customer of the credit bureaus 
.
That is the other option. You can dispute each piece of it with a standard certified dispute letter. Validation of debt demand/request/whatever.
Burden of proof is on them at that point. If you don't get a response within a certain amount of time, they're legally required to remove the entry at that point. If they don't, they can be put in some pretty hot water.
Are there any reliable resources on what can or can't be disputed?
You can dispute anything. Whether or not you'll be successful may be another matter.
Considering that these entries are not actually for OP, he'd probably be pretty successful.
the online dispute process got them to change my employment history and remove my parents names as aliases of mine.
they did, however, leave the 4 black marks that do not belong to me. time to print out the mail in dispute form to send in along with proof of my birthdate, and to find some proof that i do not have any homes in my name to get a loan on let alone the one that is in my parents' names. it should be painfully obvious to them when they see the loan was opened when i was 14, but at this point i feel the obvious needs spelled out to them in crayon.
the worst part is none of us can figure out 2 of them. they have a court date and case number, but the county's website nor the person at the clerk of courts office can find anything that has that number or anything having to do with anyone of my last name anywhere near the dates listed.
yamaha
MegaDork
1/24/15 11:15 p.m.
In reply to patgizz:
If the first try doesn't work, next time on a phone/online ask them what address you can mail their ass a letter to ensure that they get it.....better yet, include a Summons in said letter. 
In reply to patgizz:
That will work out in your favor when you dispute. If they can't prove that it's a valid debt attached to you, then they kinda have to do something about it.
