FTC Fights Freecredit.com with spoof ads.

[sinkingfeeling]

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2009/03/ftc-fights-free.html

You’re the federal agency charged with protecting consumers. You have a $250 million annual budget, subpoena power and the ability to refer cases to the Justice Department for prosecution. So what do you do when one of America's biggest companies continually flouts the law?

You challenge the company to a joke-off.

At least, that's what the Federal Trade Commission has done. On Tuesday it released two videos that spoof the popular FreeCreditReport.com commercials and their trademark catchy tunes.

The government's ads never mention FreeCreditReport.com by name, but the target is clear.

"Beware of others, there's always a catch," the singer croons in one ad that's a dead-ringer for the FreeCreditReport spot set in a restaurant. "They claim to be free but strings are attached."



Sorry, I don't know how to post the videos directly, but found them funny.

[Donnachaidh]

1. It's about frigging time.

I'm so sick of that smarmy f*ckwit and his whiny complaints about his credit being bad.

[brooklynite]

4. When you think about it, the ads don't make sense...

...why would you have to take a job you didn't want to clean up your credit history IF you had a job already?

and

...if you were in love with someone, would you NOT marry then because they had credit problems?

[DoctorMyEyes]

5. I hate those ads!

No one has to get a job - waiting tables dressed as a pirate or otherwise - to pay off debt from to being a victim of identity theft. It's the banks loss, not the victims.

And if he could have bought a house and "been a happy bachelor with a dog and a yard" before he married his poor credit wife he can STILL buy a house using HIS credit.

The commercials are stupid and misinform and the website rips people off. I'd rather see them shut down or fined by the FTC than engaged in a commercial "competition". Is that WTF our tax dollars are for? To get cute and snicker at consumer ripoffs? Arghhhhh!

[iamthebandfanman]

6. to the second part

you could attempt to help the person your in love with dig outa their debt before signing a marriage licence...

[Donnachaidh]

7. And that ad says NOTHING about HIS credit score

Blaming the entire problem on her is REAL convenient when you fail to mention your scores.

[iamthebandfanman]

8. umm

just curious but, would this commercial piss you off as much if it were reversed?

i mean, one person having a bad credit score does effect both people when you get married...regardless of which person it is...

[mikelgb]

2. Looks like they have been scrubbed already

[notesdev]

3. Um... how about prosecutions?

freecreditreport.com is a scam designed to steal money from people. The count of defrauded victims who signed up expecting a free report, then found charges on their credit cards that were supposedly only to be supplied for identity verification, must be in the millions by now.