Pet owners risk £500 fine for using unaccredited microchip company 'PetChip'

Following complaints about a company called ‘PetChip’, Which? is warning pet owners to check whether their dogs and cats are registered with an approved microchip database – or risk being fined £500. 

We’ve received 15 reports to our scam sharer tool since September 2024 about PetChip, all from members of the public who were sent emails asking them to renew expired microchip registrations. 

Some told us they don’t know who PetChip is, or how it has their details. Others used PetChip knowingly in the past, but had no idea that it's not an approved database in the UK. Pet owners could face a £500 government fine for their pet not being properly microchipped when they need to be. 

And as vet practices, rescue organisations and local authority animal wardens only check approved databases to find owners’ contact details, they also risk not being reunited with missing or stolen pets. 

Who is PetChip?

The most glaring red flag is that PetChip is not listed as one of the databases approved by Defra, the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs, which all meet government standards. 

Here in the UK, dogs must be fitted with a microchip (designed to last a lifetime and never expire) and owners must register its unique number with a compliant database to avoid potential fines. In England only, this law applies to cats too, though it's recommend that cats are microchipped regardless of your location.

When rescue organisations and others find missing or stolen pets they will scan for microchips; but, as Defra confirmed to us, they will only check compliant database operators to find owners’ contact details.

PetChip has a rather messy online presence. It appears to use various websites, none of which provide contact details or information about its origins, aside from claiming it is an ‘internationally recognised database’. You can find overwhelmingly negative comments about PetChip on Reddit, Trustpilot and various online forums. 

UK pet owners are targeted through Google advertising, appearing at the top of results for searches related to pet microchipping, as you can see below. PetChip has reportedly operated under different names in the past, including All Paws Registry and UK Pet Registry, something it didn’t deny when we put this to it. 

Google did not respond to our request for comments on its selling of advertising space to PetChip. 

Confusing emails 

Which? has seen examples of emails sent by PetChip in recent months, each claiming that owners need to pay to renew expired microchip registrations, using their correct details, including pet names and phone numbers. 

These emails state: 'Our records indicate that your microchip registration for … , has expired. …'s microchip number …will soon display "unregistered animal" in all affiliated websites and databases. In order to still be contacted at … or to update your emergency pet keeper contact information for … please visit the link below. You will need …'s microchip number … to renew your registration.'

PetChip does not make it sufficiently clear that it is not approved by Defra. We think telling people their pets will become ‘unregistered’ if they don’t take action is a naked attempt to take their money without providing a realistically useful service, and the site could potentially mislead consumers into thinking they are signing up to an accredited database. 

Legitimate operators do have costs, some using a pay-as-you-go approach (where a fee is required to make certain changes to a microchip registration) or lifetime plans with a one-off fee or subscription plans along with other membership benefits. 

However, the Association Of Microchip Database Operators (AMDO) told Which?: ‘A registration does not expire, unless instructed by the customer that they want to move to another database or the pet dies, and the microchip does not stop working.’

It said databases are also required to provide a round-the-clock telephone service for reunification of lost and found pets. When we checked both petchip.info and petchip.network, we found no reference to this service and no phone numbers for customers to call. 

What to do if you’ve received an email from PetChip

Find out where your dog or cat is registered first, by checking the microchip number at check-a-chip.co.uk. This will identify whether your pet’s details are safely registered with an approved database. 

Defra advises that you only register with a single compliant microchip database to avoid duplicate registrations, which can hinder reunification. 

If you think you have paid money or given your details to PetChip or any other non-compliant website, attempt to contact it directly to request a refund and ask it to delete any personal data they hold.

If they refuse or ignore you, report the incident to your payment provider (your bank or PayPal) and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). 

How does PetChip have your data?

Some owners said they used PetChip to register their pets’ microchips years ago and only realised that it doesn’t meet Defra standards once they received these emails and did some digging. This includes Judy, who set up a recurring annual payment of £26.95 to PetChip in 2022, having returned to the UK after 40 years overseas.

‘Paddy, my giant dog, had been microchipped by his vet in Colorado, USA. I had to re-register his chip with a UK network and this website came top of a Google search. I discovered that my dog's chip does not show up in the UK-approved databases, nor has it at any time.’

Others told us they are certain they’ve never given PetChip their details and are worried their information has been stolen or leaked following a data breach.

‘I had forgotten that a chip doesn't need re-registering, but I was a bit puzzled, as I still had the hard copy of a letter from the company I had originally used, and it was in a different name. I thought perhaps PetChip was a subsidiary, but luckily I found a load of reviews all saying not to use it. It was very convincing,’ one owner told us. 

In at least two cases reported to Which?, it transpired that the breeder or dog charity had initially registered their dog with PetChip. Others may have clicked adverts for PetChip believing it to be a different database. 

‘Unfortunately, it is generally because the customer has unwittingly visited the site. Sometimes the information may have been entered by a well-intentioned breeder, seller, or previous owner as they attempted to transfer the registration, which might explain why some customers are unaware how their details reached that website. Our key message to customers is not to trust the sponsored ads at the top of the search engines,’ says AMDO. 

PetChip responds

We contacted PetChip about this, using the email addresses reported to us. 

It said: ‘Petchip.Network, pet microchip registry is an online, searchable database, with the sole purpose of reuniting lost pets with their keepers’ and it is ‘one of many’ microchip registries not approved by the UK government and does not claim to be on the approved list.  

PetChip accused veterinarians of continuing to ‘spread false information in regards to a service we do not offer, nor do we claim to’. It also said some UK citizens locate its service online, register without being fully informed and make false claims.

It continued: ‘We host registrations from all over the world. We do not solicit and every automatic renewal email is exclusively sent to people within our database. Our email is indeed legitimate and simply informs our members that we require an annual fee to keep your account active. We do not claim that their microchip enrolment will expire in any other network other than our own.’

We were told the database consists of ‘members who specifically sought out our website’ and submitted their contact details and pet's microchip number. When we pressed PetChip on its failure to inform UK owners that they face £500 fines and not being reunited with pets if they use its service, a representative offered further comments. 

‘The assumption that PetChip’s website is not searched when a lost pet is located is false. In fact, our search engine page conducts thousands of searches each day…We clearly state in our terms and conditions that updating your details with PetChip Network does not update across all registries. In short, our registry simply makes it easier for your contact information to be searched online. We make no other claims.’ 

They added that members are ‘always offered a refund at the slightest notion of dissatisfaction or confusion’.