Did you miss the original band of friendly, slackerish white dudes who pretended to play ditties about the dangers of poor credit FreeCreditReport.com ads? Yeah, neither did anyone else. But even though they held a nationwide contest to find their current house band two years ago, the magic just wasn’t there. Maybe the new guys weren’t irritating enough. So the old crew is back together to annoy us.

Led by actual musician Eric Violette (who doesn’t do the singing in the ads) the band, called “The Original Band,” was ditched along with the company’s original business model when the FTC took issue with the word “free” being used to shill Experian’s credit monitoring services. Now the company pitches $1 credit reports and “free” credit scores.

Of course, the real cool kids know that the best place to get your free credit report is AnnualCreditReport.com, and you can get a pretty good estimate of your credit score at CreditKarma.com.

Two years after getting kicked to the curb, the original band is back [AdWeek] (Thanks, GitEmSteveDave!)

Holy Crap, The FreeCreditReport.com Guy Is French-Canadian
FreeCreditReport Looking For New House Band

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.