Petlog rip-off charges
We have recently moved house, and obviously needed to inform several organisations about our new address. For the most part, you get no confirmation until the next bill or correspondence arrives. Some even send a nice letter saying:
Thank you for taking the time to inform us of your updated details
except one: Petlog.
For those who don’t know, when you have a cat or dog, you can have it ‘chipped’, i.e. a small device, the size of a grain of rice, is inserted under the skin at the nape of the animal’s neck. Each chip has a unique serial number. Petlog (part of the Kennel Club) hold a database of these chips, referencing the id to your address should your pet ever be lost.
We informed Petlog of the new address and the reply was:
Thank you for your revised details. In order to action this request, we require a payment of £7.50
What?! No-one else has asked for payment. Cheeky *******!
I have sent a letter in reply:
Petlog
4a Alton House Office Park
Gatehouse Way
Aylesbury
Bucks
HP19 8XU18th January 2007
Dear Sirs
Re: Change of Address: chip number xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
We refer to your letter of 16th January.
We must point out that in moving house, we have informed more than fifty companies and organisations, both large and small, and Petlog is the only one to have the audacity to demand a payment for thirty seconds of keyboard work.
By the time you had written your letter, you could have changed the address on your database. In fact in writing your letter you have actually typed our new address. This time could have been far better spent typing it into the database.
The amount is not even nominal. Let’s be generous and say it takes two minutes to change the address: are you seriously suggesting it costs you £225 an hour to employ clerical staff, or are you employing high court barristers? Maybe your office processes are inefficient and require serious scrutiny.
My guess, however, is that it is really a ploy to sell your ‘petlog+’ package with ‘added extras’ which represent very little value to us:
‘Free’ changes of address Having just moved house, we are unlikely to move again before the cat dies, so no value there. Especially as everyone else does it for free.
Add holiday travel details When we go away, the cat is in the cattery, we give our details to them, again no value.
Lost Pet Posters I am perfectly capable of producing my own posters, probably to a much higher quality.
The extortionate charge of £7.50 cannot be justified in any way. You don’t even include a reply paid envelope. You are playing on the emotional relationship between a pet and its owner.
I guess being part of the kennel club, you are aiming your service at those with pedigree dogs and cats costing hundreds or even thousands of pounds, however, we are talking here about a non-pedigree domestic cat with a purchase value of zero.
As far as I’m concerned, I paid enough for your service when the chip was fitted.
Yours faithfully
UPDATE: 23rd April
Well, it’s over three months later and no reply from Petlog
Yeah, this “organised crime outfit”, ie:- PetLog is shocking.
Its now £15 to change your address !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WTF.
Money for nothing, or what?
I think ‘organised crime outfit’ is going a bit far, but £15 is now getting ridiculous. It won’t be long before it’s cheaper to get the animal re-chipped.
Money for nothing – definitely!
The reason for the charge is because petlog are a non-profitable organisation and at the time of microchipping they recieve no money for the initial inserting of the chip. They put the details on the database and send out confirmation all of which they dont get money for. When you come to change your details they ask for an amendment fee so that they can send out more paperwork.
My pet recently went missing and was found and returned to me because of the microchip, if your pets ever go missing i’m sure you’ll agree that £7.50 or £15 is nothing for having your pet returned to the correct address!
Kirsty, thanks for your comment, however, your point about not-for-profit does not hold water. If being not-for-profit was a reason to charge, then why was it that not a single one of the other not-for-profit organisations in the fifty-odd mentioned above see fit to charge for 30 seconds work? What makes Petlog different? It cost them the same to send out a letter asking for a fee as it would for simply changing the details.
Regarding the correct address, we are still in contact with the owner of our previous house, so that fortunately would not be an issue.
Having worked for Petlog, there was nothing more embarrasing than asking for payment to change an address. I was aware when I knew people wouldn’t pay but if they put a note on with your new address details, that suffices for the time being. When pets are chipped, Petlog will only receive £1 of the fee; the rest goes to the vets, manufacturer, Joe Bloggs etc. But you’re right, it’s a non-profitable organisation so why such an extortionate fee? I’m not surprised you didn’t have a response from your letter to be honest but it was well written so thumbs up for that. All my pets are chipped but that doesn’t mean I agree with the way the administrational side of things are ran. There are however other databases you could move your details too and I don’t think they charge for anything.
Here’s a suggestion: update petlog with your new details (i.e. upgrade to Petlog Premium and pay a tenner) ONLY WHEN YOUR PET HAS GONE MISSING. There is no point beforehand. All you get for your tenner is * Lost Pet E-mail Alert * Free amendments (available online) * Temporary Address details (available online) * 2nd Carer details (available online) * Free plastic collar tags * Lost Pet Posters… None of which you need and carry no value.
I’ve recently split up with my partner and they want to charge me £15 to change the name. Its ludicrous especially as they’ve got a website set up which means they don’t really have to do any work anyway!!! Non-profit? Really?
Whats worse is, i’ve already got petlog premium (I’ve already paid the £15).
I’ve just had a conversation with a lady at Petlog about changing my address for my dog’s microchip as we’ve just moved house, and she said I could do it online for £10, or over the phone for £15 and I would automatically have the premium product. I said I didn’t want the premium product thanks, I just wanted to simply change our address for my dog’s wellbeing. She said this was not an option. This is extortion – I would happily donate a couple of quid to the Kennel Club if they need the money so much and asked me nicely, but I’d rather donate it to the rescue centre that I got my dog from as they work an awful lot harder to save dogs’ lives and give them happy futures. £15 is truly outrageous for a bit of data entry, so I guess I will be sticking to the old fashioned “silver tag on collar” option for now.
In the meantime, I am going to write to the ICO to check whether it is legal to be charged by a data controller to keep personal data up to date, as I thought all data controllers had a legal obligation to keep personal data up to date at no charge. The Kennel Club’s registration as a data controller is on the ICO register, see: http://www.ico.gov.uk/ESDWebPages/DoSearch.asp –
Pay the £7.50 you cheapskate! You want their services, pay the bill. Simple as that.