Dead dog offered credit card

Kelly Sloan’s dog Spark could be eligible for up to $30,000 in credit, even though the sheltie-spaniel mix died 10 years ago. The Sarnia, Ontario, man was leafing through his mail last week when he found a letter from Capital One, urging its addressee to apply for a special credit card offer. “We’re not offering our low long-term rate to just anyone,” said the letter, addressed to Spark Sloan, who died nearly at age 13.

“They’ve got the right name, the right address, and it’s a heck of a deal. She can apply online today, and I guess, get her card,” Kelly said. “With the economy the way it is, I can understand they’re becoming a little more lenient than they were as far as passing out credit cards.” The Sloan family saga with Capital One began more than a decade ago.



Sloan’s father had a Capital One credit card. When he died in 1999, Kelly contacted the company to cancel the card. But the notices, updates and requests for information kept coming, addressed to his deceased father. “I was contacting them saying, ‘The man’s dead, please stop,’” Sloan said. The pile continued to grow.

Frustrated, Sloan filled out a form creatively. Years later, Spark is getting posthumous offers in the mail. If Spark had got her paws on some plastic while alive, she might have bought herself a hula hoop, Sloan said. When contacted, Capital One apologized for their mistake. “We do comb through to make sure we’re sending them to the appropriate people, but obviously there’s an error here and we apologize,” said Capital One representative Laurel Ostfield.