18/09/2025
🐾 Owners – Watch Out for This Scam! 🐾
It has been brought to our attention that there has been a definite increase in the number of scammers that are sending emails & texts saying your pet’s microchip has “expired” and you need to pay to “renew” it.
❌ This is FAKE! Microchips don’t expire.
What the scam looks like:
* An email, SMS or letter claiming your pet’s microchip registration has expired or will soon expire and demanding a payment (often a one-off fee or “renewal” of £20–£30).
* The message can be highly personalised (pet name, microchip number, your address) to look trustworthy. Scammers get this information from insecure/false registries, data leaks or by scraping social media.
Other important information:
* Scammers create fake microchip registries or clone real-sounding names (e.g., “PetChip Network”, “Petchip.info”)
* In countries with formal microchip databases (for example the UK), microchips themselves do not routinely expire — you only need to keep your registered contact details up to date and you only pay fees to the official database when required. If a message claims a chip will “stop working” unless you pay now, it’s almost certainly a scam.
🚩 Look out for:
⚡ Urgent language: “renew now”, “final warning” messages or threats that your pet will become unregistered
⚡ Strange links asking for payment
⚡ Sender domain not matching any official registry (look carefully at email address, not just the display name)
✅ What to do:
✔️ Ignore & delete the message
✔️ Pop in to the practice with your pet and ask us to check the chip or check it with an official database. Use the gov.uk list of DEFRA-approved databases or an official lookup tool. If the microchip is registered with an approved provider, contact that provider directly, do not use the contact details on the email/SMS/letter
✔️ Report dodgy emails to [email protected].
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