FreeCreditReport Dude Is Identity Theft Victim

by Andy Miofsky, Illinois Bankruptcy Attorney

That Dude, you know, the one with the guitar, and the wife with bad credit.  Yeah that Dude, the credit report guy in the fish restaurant with the pirate hat and the blue beater.  You mean the Dude waiting tables at the rock star party?  Yeah that’s him, the Dude at the Renaissance Faire.  Oh, him.  Who is he?  He is Eric Violette, a french Canadian, and he is not poor, he did not have to trade in his beater for a bicycle and he does not wait tables.  He does not even sing the song in the Free Credit Report . com commercials.  Remember the part where I said he is French Canadian?  To him, English is a foreign language, with an accent.  Here is how he really looks and sounds.

But his identity has run 90,000 times in the first 9 months since the commercial aired on television, according to MSNBC writer, Helen A.S. Popkin, in her amusing article, “Sing it, FreeCreditReport.com guy!”  And all of America knows his song.

Or do we?
“Any consumer outrage over FreeCreditReport.com has nothing to do with the site and how you don’t get your “free credit report” until you and your credit card number enroll in the $14.95 per month credit-monitoring service, of which you get the first seven days free, but if you fail to read the fine print and don’t cancel, your credit card is automatically charged until you do, ” says Helen.

So the free credit report ain’t; and the Dude is a figment of an ad agency imagination.  Does that mean we should not believe everything we see advertised on TV?  P.T. Barnum once said, “There is a sucker born every minute”.

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