Free Credit Report

Freecreditreport.com is famous for their uniquely honest approach, telling customers "It's really easy to be scammed out of your financial information - here, give us your credit card number and we'll show you!" They charge fifteen dollars a month to make sure people aren't ripping you off, so they've instantly failed and succeeded simultaneously.

It's the ultimate scam, offering something that really is free for free and finding a way to make money from it. The brutal satire of the American economy, where even attempting to avoid ripoff credit card debt lands you with exactly that, is free* of charge.

Equifax and TransUnion maintain equally important credit ratings, and if you think they share then welcome to Earth - we've got this thing called "money" and wow, you're going to be mugged and murdered before we hit the end of this sentence so we can spend it calling you an idiot xenotard from the Planet Naïve-asshole.

You are federally guaranteed one free credit report a year, but it's found at annualcreditreport.com, not freecreditreport.com, because the government doesn't need to advertise. It's the trade you make for not living in a full Free Market Ayn Randian Bioshock nightmare - the government doesn't worry about using the snappiest name, and our tax returns aren't brought to us by the great taste of Pepsi.

The freecreditreport sites have received multiple federal injunctions - that phrase isn't just legal action, that's the sound of a business's lawyer having a heart attack. They were sued in 2005 and, unlike 99% of the lawsuits in existence, it wasn't a chancing greedhole making fun of the legal system. It was the Federal Trade Commission. When entire chunks of the government start using each other to sue you, you've earned so much money for saying fictional things to millions of people that you should probably win an Oscar.

The first suit only helped them take more piss out of customers than a turbocharged dialysis machine: they agreed to provide almost a million dollars' worth of the service they actually promised. Since they spent 72 million promoting it, and made umpty-million more than that from it, this wasn't so much a slap on the wrist as the gentle application of scented wrist-lotion by a masseuse dressed as a judge. They also pinky-swore not to do it again.

2006: did it again*. This time they were sued by Florida's Attorney General, and even MSNBC broadcast a report warning that the service was exploiting an army of idiots.

*The fact you saw this joke coming but the judge couldn't is terrifying.

2010: Yep. Another lawsuit has forced the inclusion a warning right on the top of freecreditreport.com, which they did, microseconds before creating freecreditscore.com. And in the most horrific concept combination since hissing spiders got Tila Tequila pregnant, the new site features a reality-TV style battle of the bands to choose who'll make the next batch of ear-molesting adverts.

Experian prove that they're evil by agreeing with the RIAA, claiming major financial decisions should be based on shitty songs. They unleashed a plague of viral adverts focused on how poor people are terrible, and anyone who has ever worked as a server in any capacity is a sub-human who might as well be in prison.

Man, having a job makes me a terrible American!

These ads were so amazingly mockable that even the Federal Trade Commission made parodies, and government agents need to fill out a form to even say "humor." When branches of the government spend $100,000 to take the piss out of you, well, you're still laughing because that's apparently all an entire government which knows you're a scam can do.

We're meant to be taking the piss out of scumbag criminal scammers, but let's mock the Irish while we're at it.

PROTIP: This is the only ad in history to feature the phrase "No hidden fees. Absolutely free." This is important. The fact other ads still work, or even exist, is proof we need to spend more on education.