With tax season currently causing headaches for all the procrastinators out there (represent!), John Oliver decided to spend much of his usual half hour of evisceration on Sunday on another potentially money-draining reality of American life: credit scores. Oliver, who is very much not a fan of the agencies giving out these so-called scores, took specific aim at the biggest names in the credit reporting game before ultimately coming to the conclusion that the bulk of their practices does, in fact, equate to general evilness.
According to Oliver, frustrating credit reports may be better described as the "basis for the single most important three digit number in your whole life other than 311, the Beatles of rap rock." Seemingly impossible 311 reference aside, the recent Donald Drumpf exposer then broke down just how supremely fucked up credit reporting practices (unsurprisingly) are. Not only are the major credit agencies generally operating at a 95 percent success rate (leaving 10 million people with botched reports), 52 percent of all debt that appears on these reports is due to mounting medical expenses. "No one chooses to be sick," Oliver explained, "with the possible exception of Julianne Moore taking a run at Best Actress."
Sensing the possibility of a brilliant trolling in the name of justice, Oliver then decided to name names in a very big way. "Remember the big three credit companies, Equifax, Experian, and Transunion?" Oliver asked his Last Week Tonight audience. "We started three terrible companies with names that are problematically similar to theirs. Specifically, Equifacks, Experianne, and Tramsonion." As you surely expect at this point in Last Week Tonight history, these "three terrible companies" also arrive with their very own websites.
To ease the pain of the realization that even credit reporting agencies don't have our best interests at heart, here's a really old 311 song that should at least perplex you to the point of unabashed joy:
