This is a very insightful question.
Right information is power and what I will give you here is the right information on what you should do if the credit bureau cannot verify the correctness of negative information on your credit report within the stipulated time.
According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, FCRA, a credit bureau that has negative information listed in your credit report has just 30 days to investigate the correctness or wrongness of such information on your report.
If within 30 days they are not able to complete their investigation, then they MUST delete the negative information from your report.
It does not matter anymore whether the information is actually correct or not.
The important thing in this case is that they are not able to complete their investigation within the period the law mandates and as a result, they are required to delete it from your report.
If on the other hand, they complete their investigation within 30 days and the result shows that the negative information on your report does not belong to you, they are required to delete the negative information immediately.
In addition to this, they are required to send you a letter notifying you that they have deleted the negative information from your report.
One important thing you should bear in mind when you are sending your dispute letter requesting the credit bureau to delete the negative information from your report is to send it by registered mail.
THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.
The reason is because you will have an evidence of the delivery of the letter and the credit bureau cannot deny not receiving your letter.