Credit cards for cats

By John Freeman on January 5, 2007

This surely has to be a theme for a new Really Heavy Greatcoat, when I get time to write some. Reuters reports today that an Australian bank has been forced to apologize after it issued a credit card to a cat after its owner decided to test the bank’s identity security system.

The Bank of Queensland issued a credit card to Messiah the cat when his owner Katherine Campbell applied for a secondary card on her account under its name.

Before Messiah could go mad online and buy enough Go Cat to keep it happy for the next couple of decades (which is what my cat would have done) the bank said the cat’s card had been canceled. Shame.

“We apologize as this should not have happened,” it said in a statement (probably issued by someone called Rover).

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.