Another reason to hate those accursed Freecreditreport.com ads

New York Times, via Yahoo Finance[*1] and Instapundit[*2] :

But a couple of months later, Mr. Steele noticed the site had been charging his credit card. While he believed he had signed up for a free report, he had actually enrolled in a credit-monitoring service that cost $14.95 a month. He says he never expected that it would cost anything.

“It’s called FreeCreditReport.com,” he said. “It’s kind of easy to make that assumption. I didn’t see anything in the process of signing up that said, ‘Hey, if you don’t cancel in 30 days or whatever, you’re going to get charged.'”

BigRipOff.com is more like it, in my opinion.

As the article points out, if you want your annual free credit report mandated by Federal law, go to Annualcreditreport.com[*3] .  That one is The Real Thing.  Accept no substitutes.  Believe no ads, especially ones with guys singing insipidly insidiously catchy ditties.

Oh, and we also need to send the Starving Evil Whippet Dog Devil Ravening Pack the way of those responsible for the entire GEICO and Progressive Insurance ad campaigns, while we’re at it.