I suppose the larger point is that it seems rather obvious that everyone in the consumer sector would prefer more truth in advertising, regardless of political affiliation or lack thereof…
You can get your credit score for free (well, you have to submit to advertising come-ons, some of which are deceptive) at www.creditkarma.com
This gives you your actual score, and a credit summary.
They do have decptive ads based on your existing lines of credit. I was offered a loan that would save me 20 bucks a month on my car payment. The ad said “same term, lower rate!” and I looked and the rate was actually HIGHER than mine. They got the lower payment because it was a 27 month term instead of a 24 month term.
There are those that do and those that don’t, depending on a bunch of definitions of course.
Lets flip this around.
You have two “pro weed, make it legal” populations. On one end you have the ones that smoke it all the time. At the other end you have folks that never or rarely have, would prefer that it WAS legal and still wouldnt use it even if it WAS legal.
We can guess which ones (statistically speaking) are just trying to justify what they want to do and the ones that are operating on principle.
IMO the same kind of dynamic can often be found in the “pro business/conservative” crowd.
I really disagree with the notion that smoking pot correlates to the chance that your political position is an ex-post justification.
Now, it’s certainly true that if there is anyone seeking an ex-post justification, they would be pot users. But that’s needlessly and unfairly lumping all the dope smokers into taking a political position for convenience.
Same with these conservatives. Sure, any “conservative” who adopts conservative principles for convenience would be in the “screw product disclosure laws” group. But there are also going to be many bona-fide conservatives who disagree with product disclosure laws who aren’t doing so merely for convenience. Just like dope smokers.
Bolding mine
And there are plenty that ARE in my opinion. And IMO more than just random statistics would suggest (just like the pot smokers). And to be fair, that sorta dynamic is IMO prevalent in just about any “cause”.
Don’t get me wrong. In many ways I could and would be labeled a pro business conservative. Hell, on this board I am probaby considered WAY right wing in many ways, even though many of my positions really don’t benifit me in any direct way.
I’ll be the contrarian and say that I like their service. I have used them three times. Two of the times, I signed up got my report and cancelled immediately with no problem. The third time I decided to pay extra to see all three of my credit reports. Cancelling with them is like cancelling anything; they try to talk you out of it, but it is fairly easy to do.
I am fully aware that they make most of their money off of either stupid or lazy people who either forget to cancel or can’t figure out how. For a responsible person that wants to see their credit report along with the score, it’s a pretty easy and convenient source.
Why would you pay extra to see all three of the credit reports you can get for free?
www.annualcreditreport.com – You get all three for free. Trust me. Save your money.
Because I see value in getting my credit score and not just the report. That information is not free on annualcreditreport.com.
<tap tap tap> Hello? You can get your credit score for free, without signing up for any ongoing payment service, at www.creditkarma.com
Than you, that’s all.
I looked briefly at their website and it looks like a pretty good deal. I will note that it also appears that they only provide the credit score from Transunion and not from the other credit reporting agencies.
The reform I’d like to see is putting some teeth into the promise of “cancel at any time”. A lot of these borderline companies seem to make it real difficult to cancel an ongoing service once they’ve got your credit card number.
Maybe an independant company. Companies selling services would be required to provide you with an account number. If you want to cancel the service, you call the cancelling company and tell them you want to stop account number whatever. They inform the service company and your credit card company. The service company has two business days to close the account and your credit card company pays them nothing beyond that. None of this “we didn’t get your cancellation request so we kept charging you for our service.”
You did say you paid extra to see all three of your reports, which is not the same as a credit score. I’m just sayin’.
I could totally get on board with this.
If you read consumer websites like the Consumerist, you read stories about companies that make it really easy to sign up for things online, but that force you to speak to a human being to cancel. You spend hours navigating through extremely user-unfriendly systems of voice messages before you can get to a human being, and are then bombarded with questions about why you’re canceling and hard sell tactics to get you to stay. Then, they tell you you’ve canceled, and you still see another charge on your credit card the next month.
I would add something else to your suggestion: consumers should be able to cancel using exactly the same process they use to sign up in the first place. So, if you allow users to sign up online using just their name, address, and credit card number, then you must also have a web page allowing them to cancel using their name, address, and credit card number.
To clarify, I was talking about the sort of conservatives who hate ANY government legislation, and regard it as Taking Away Our Freedoms. I, on the other hand, am a goddamn pinko liberal, and I regard laws that require ads to use “free” to mean “no obligation, no pressure, we WILL give you this product without requiring you to sign up with us”, and to similarly block such companies from getting a credit card number upon sign-up of a free service.
Umm, Lynn? I’m on your side, and everything, but could you revisit that post and try it again, as a sentence this time?
Two sentences later in the same post I said the following.
Okay. But, technically, that’s not what you said. I’m not trying to nitpick (really, I’m not) but you didn’t say you paid extra for the score, you said you paid extra for the report. Causing Airman to question why you would pay for the report. Surely, you can see the cause of the confusion.
I not only want to sign up for your newsletter, I want to give you all my money so you can make this happen.
Here’s a dollar.
I agree, I can see the confusion. I thought of the score as an essential part of the report. Clearly the report does exist on a standalone basis, so I should have made it more clear that I was paying for the reports with scores.
That’s how they getcha!! 
(I’m just being a smartass. Blame it on the coffee. Or Rio. Whichever.)