John Oliver on Why The Credit Report Industry is Awful

John Oliver of HBO’s Last Week Tonight did a humorous monologue on why credit reporting bureaus are awful. Appropriately, it was last week and I finally got around to watching the 18-minute video tonight. Here is the full video link, embedded below:

Here’s the condensed version:

• Your credit report can affect your ability to borrow (and thus buy a home), your ability to rent, the price you pay for all kinds of stuff, and even your ability to get a job. Sheesh, what else is there left?
• 1 in 20 credit reports have errors that are significant enough to hurt your chances at the rather important things I just listed above. That’s 10 million Americans.
• In an effort to show Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion how such errors can hurt both reputations and business, they created the three websites Equifacks.com, Experianne.com, and TramsOnion.com. (Warning: I left some of these unlinked because they may be considered NSFW.)

In general, I do not micromanage my credit score, but it is scary than an error outside your control could have such harmful effects on your day-to-day life. Perhaps this information will also motivate you to check your credit and consumer reports if you haven’t done so recently. There are also an increasing number of free and/or ad-supported sources of credit reports, credit monitoring, and credit scores. The bad news is that the error dispute process is still slow and complicated, and after you try patience and perseverance, you may need to lawyer up in order to get their attention.