April 6, 2010

Ben Stein’s Credit Report Fail

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Reuters‘ Felix Salmon has done yeoman’s work ruining what was left of the reputation of Ben Stein, the political commentator and D-list celebrity best known for his role in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” a Comedy Central game show, and Visine ads. Unfortunately, Felix’s work on this hasn’t received nearly enough attention, and I still have to see Stein on my television at least four or five times a week. Stein’s latest gig is as a spokesman for Freescore.com, a “free credit report” site. If you know anything about Freescore’s competitors, you will realize is not a good place to go get a free credit score. Felix explains:

[On April 2,] a new FTC rule came into effect (read all 22 pages of it here), forcing all such websites to have a huge notice across the top of every web page, saying that AnnualCreditReport.com is the ONLY authorized source for credit reports under federal law, and providing a prominent link to this page.

Folks who are familiar with how these sites operate will not be surprised to learn that Freescore.com and Creditreport.com have so far ignored the FTC rule. FreeCreditReport.com (which is behind the most annoying of the “free” credit report ads you see on television) has taken its noncompliance a step further with a bizarre scheme that Felix explains here. “In any case,” Felix adds, “it’s pretty clear that both Freescore.com and CreditReport.com are simply in outright violation of the new laws. I look forward very much to seeing them slapped with some huge fines.”

Me, too. Maybe if the fine’s big enough, Freescore won’t be able to afford to pay Ben Stein any more money.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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