What does it say about the futility of federal regulators when the Federal Trade Commission thinks the best way to combat misleading commercials for “free credit reports” is to use taxpayer funds to produce and run a parody of  those ads? That’s right: the government is running TV commercials designed to look like the commercials that try to confuse consumers into using  a costly credit service rather than the government’s free service.

And the original ads are better. You know a parody is a flop if it isn’t as amusing as what it parodies.

Well, I guess it’s good the F.T.C. doing something. The parody  responds to the intentionally misleading campaign by “FreeCreditReport.com,” which has run a series of popular and catchy commercials following the  misadventures of young rock singer ( played be French Canadian actor Eric Violette, trivia fans!) who hasn’t taken proper care of his credit and ends up waiting tables dressed as a pirate, living with his wife’s parents, and (the horror!) working at a Renaissance fair. FreeCreditReport.com isn’t free, you see, and you almost certainly don’t need its services, since the U.S. requires all credit services to provide you with your credit report—free!—once a year. You get those reports at the F.T.C. site, AnnualCreditReport.com.   Experian, one of those three credit bureaus obligated to tell you what your credit score is, came up with the clever idea of using a URL that resembles the government site to attract income from consumers nervous about their credit ratings. Using the website address, the TV ditties and the twinkle in Violette’s eye, Experian  dangles the lure of “free credit reports” (that consumers have a right to receive anyway) to  hook them on a subscription service ( for $14.95 a month) that sends alerts any time there’s a major change in a subscriber’s credit status. The result? An estimated 600-700 million dollars for Experian.

Very few consumers need such alerts, experts say. Edgar Dworsky, founder of ConsumerWorld.org and once a member of Experian’s consumer advisory panel, told the The New York Times that FreeCreditReport.com’s ads are stoking paranoia primed by the recession.

But wait…isn’t the FTC supposed to protect consumers against deceptive campaigns like this—a service identified by FreeCreditReport.com that isn’t free... a URL that invites confusion with government site that actually does provide free credit reports…a credit report service promoting paranoia about what dastardly things credit bureaus can do, created by one of those bureaus to get fees from frightened consumers? Sure it is. But there is no law—yet–against deceptive web addresses.  Intentionally confusing less-than-informed consumers is an unethical tactic that is as old as commerce, and if it’s done cleverly, one that is almost impossible to stop.

The FTC can’t stop, for example,  those video knock-offs of Disney classics, packaged in similar colors and designs, with similar graphics, and generic, public domain titles like “Sleeping Beauty.” The companies that make the cheap cartoons inside sell hundreds of thousands to parents grabbing videos off the shelves without reading all the fine print. Still,  the information is there to read, and the design of the box isn’t quite close enough to violate Disney’s copyrights and trademarks. The FTC is powerless, just as it is apparently powerless to stop ads for a website called FreeCreditReport.com selling credit reports that aren’t free. Unethical is not always illegal, but it can be as profitable as robbing a Brink’s truck.

The only way to protect consumers, and to shame companies like Experian that use shady and deceitful tactics,  is to get the word out, far and wide. Let  networks know that you’ll change the channel every time you see Violette’s face: running FreeCreditReport.com ads in return for a chunk of the cash Experian has fleeced from consumers with their bait-and-switch is aiding and abetting  unethical trickery, and the networks should be accountable.

That’s what the F.T.C. should be doing too: getting the word out. But  commercial parodies? That’s a pretty dubious strategy, in my view— trying to rectify the confusion caused by a commercial with a parody that encourages confusion with the original commercial. What consumers need is some clear and direct information to end the deceit.