A couple of day ago I wrote about how I foolishly and unwittingly signed up for freecreditreport.com's $14.95 monthly credit monitoring service.
One of the commenters, Creeto, pointed to this funny video song by Dan Louisell, who wrote: "What really happens when you use freecreditreport.com? This was for a contest to either cover one of the songs from the commercials or write your own jingle. Being that this isn't very flattering to the website, I bet I won't win. :)"
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Well done. Shunned by a turtle, even.
Me likey! I'm sending this to everyone I know.
Well, no, not really, but I WILL pass it on here and there as appropriate.
win. :) better than the original ads it's spoofing!
That was great, hellava voice and much better than freecrapreports ads.
Actually www.annualcreditreport.com is the way to get your report for free. You're entitled to it once per year, and that's the site to use to get it.
Honestly, that was a much better song than I was expecting.
I'm pretty sure you can also just write to the credit rating agencies directly and ask them to send you your report. I did that a while ago when I was thinking of buying a house.
Of course, one of them took forever to answer, and the other one never did. But I'm pretty sure they're actually required by law to answer you.
At least, that's in Canada. Other places, who knows...
Tortoises bite quite hard. I'm glad yours was more intimidated by your swooping action than lured by your tasty-looking nose!
I've not seen the ads it's spoofing, but it was still a fun song.
I attempted to Digg it. But Digg is so poorly designed. I get this. After clicking the Digg link, going to the login page, log in, then back to this page to resubmit via digg button. Post headline and cut / paste details. Next I get this.
-----
An unknown fatal exception has occurred
Whoa! Something blew up. If you think you reached this error in error please do not hesitate to contact support.
@ #8 Gemma
I was thinking that too! When I was in elementary school, I had a turtle named Sammy and used to like giving him kisses... until he bit my lip and wouldn't let go!!
This is funny... BTW, I was in the midst of signing up on this site, but I read the fine print, and decided not to. I'm kinda surprised anyone would sign up on these things and not read the fine print.
yeah...some of us even enjoy reading all that fine print, legalese and gobbledegook.
Oh yes: pay attention to what the man sings about Natty Ice. Yuk! You get what you pay for, sometimes, and not in a good way.
don't forget free triple score! when are those people finally going to get hit by a drunk driver?
The company being justifiably lampooned is emblematic of exploitation marketing at it's most indefensible.Which is the kindest yet still obvious fact. The obvious things have become seemingly taboo to state. With a darker possible explication. The right hand of an industry is holding out an antidote to identity theft while their left hand has motive to be hiring identity thieves... Not accusing of course- just expressing a suspicion.
I would also mention that this guy at least sings the song, whereas the guy in the commercials lipsyncs.
Which is kind of a shame because I like the songs in some twisted way.
I think this vid also lampoons the freecreditreport commercial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8pcME4MMj0&eurl=http://pensionpulse.blogspot.com/
I remember from school that you can have each of 3 companies tell you your credit report once a year.
I was told to check about every 4 months with one of them. My teacher was a little anal about his money though.
And an incredible song,
Definitely will pass it on to a few people.
I would chip in to get this aired on network television.
Hi, I'm Dan and I made this video. I'm very glad for all of the positive comments, as well as for finding my song here! A couple things: my turtle is actually very passive, and I did read the fine print, which is what inspired the song. And yes, I am singing and playing all the parts, as opposed to the commercials. Thanks, friends!
Hey Dan, thumbs up! Not bad at all.
I actually like the creditreport.con ads, but this was also very well done. The turtle cracked me up.
Intentionally misleading ads are something I've really wondered about. Whether it is about that "Certain part of the male anatomy", or "Free Credit Reports", there are so many misleading ads that would, once upon a time, only have been found in the back ads section of Rolling Stone or Omni.
That's awesome. I had my own trouble with them. Called them up after I found the charges, told them they were falsely advertising. They tried to point out the fine print to show me that it was okay that they mislead millions of people.
The spoof is good, but the original gives away the companies uselessness.
"I could have seen it coming at me like an atom bomb"?
Just who can do anything to save you from an incoming atom bomb by the time you've seen it?
Great work Dan! You're awesome! I hope this video launches you into a lucrative new career that erases your debt, restores your FICO score to the high 800s, and makes you rich and famous. Just remember to thank all us fans for "friending" you when you needed it on BoingBoing.
the credit agencies are all crooks remember Choice Point
the credit agencies are in part responsible for the financial mess
Personally I used Stealmyid.com and all my credit worries are gone
This is fabulous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111