Diary of a Mad Editor

You see that dumb commercial for the free credit report where the dork is wearing a pirate costume and singing about his messed-up credit? I really do have messed-up credit and I certainly don’t feel like singing about it. But now, thanks to that commercial, I cannot get that annoying jingle out of my head.

They must run that commercial a million times a day on every channel. I can’t turn the TV on without seeing it. Do you think that kind of advertising works? I suspect it probably does or they wouldn’t continue to put commercials out there like that. However, I suspect it’s more like “Okay, okay. I’ll get my damn credit report!” rather than, “Oh, what useful information, I think I’ll get a copy of my credit report.”

The service they’re selling isn’t free anyway. The credit report is free, but not because they are giving it to you for free. You are entitled to one free report every year by law — it’s a little thing called the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act which requires the 3 credit bureaus to give you a copy of your credit report once a year upon request. What these companies are selling is a credit monitoring service that keeps track of your credit reporting for you and there’s a fee attached to that — a fee that’s normally billed to your credit card. These monitoring services won’t necessarily protect you from identity theft and they won’t protect you from running up even more debt or maintaining a solid credit rating. What they do is keep you updated on your credit information and alert you to changes or who has been accessing you credit information. The main difference between the free report and the paid service is the level of access. Personally I’d rather not have to listen to the singing pirate in order to find that out.