Text from your vet or I-CAD: genuine or fake?

Short answer: a veterinary clinic, a pet insurer or the French national pet identification registry I-CAD can legitimately send you a text message — a vaccine reminder, an appointment confirmation, an alert saying "your pet has been found". These messages arrive from a 3xxxx short code or an alphanumeric sender ID, and they never ask for payment through a link. The moment a "pet" text demands a few euros to "validate the microchip" or "unlock your dog's record", it's a scam: don't click, forward it to 33700.

Updated 18 October 2026.

There's one type of text message that even the most suspicious people click on: the one about their pet. Over the course of a year, a dog owner receives, on average, a vaccination reminder, a worming follow-up, an appointment confirmation, a message from the insurer about the annual direct debit and sometimes a notification from the identification registry after a change of address. Five or six legitimate messages, all credible, all expected.

All it takes is slipping in a seventh, fake one for your guard to come down. Especially when that seventh message says: "Your dog has been reported as straying. Confirm your contact details within 48 hours to avoid impoundment."

Why does your vet have your mobile number?

Because you gave it to them when your pet's file was created, and because text messaging has become their main reminder tool — ahead of phone calls and far ahead of post.

When a file is opened at a clinic, the practice management software records at minimum:

• your name, address and mobile number;
• the pet's name, species, breed and date of birth;
• its identification number (microchip or tattoo);
• the vaccination history, with booster dates calculated automatically;
• sometimes your IBAN, if you've signed up for a monthly health plan at the clinic.

This data is used first and foremost to reach you during a hospital stay, and then feeds the automated follow-ups: vaccination reminder 15 days ahead, worming reminder, appointment confirmation the day before, an invitation to a senior health check when the dog reaches a certain age.

Alongside the clinic, other legitimate players hold the same "mobile number + identified pet" pairing:

Who's writing to you	Why	What they never do by text
Veterinary clinic	Vaccine reminder, appointment, results available	Ask for a bank card via a link
I-CAD (French national registry for the identification of domestic carnivores)	Confirmation of a change of keeper, pet reported found	Demand "update fees" by text
Pet insurance or health cover	Premium due date, claim reimbursed	Ask for your banking credentials
Pharmacy / boarding kennel / groomer	Order ready, appointment confirmed	Demand immediate payment under threat
Charity or shelter	Adoption follow-up, donation campaign	Impose a payment link with a 24-hour deadline

I-CAD operates the French national registry for the identification of domestic carnivores, under delegation from the Ministry of Agriculture. Identification is compulsory in France for dogs, cats and ferrets, under Article L. 212-10 of the Rural and Maritime Fishing Code, which can be consulted on Légifrance. It is precisely this legal obligation that scammers exploit: everyone vaguely knows that "the microchip must be kept up to date", and nobody knows exactly how or with whom.

What does a genuine vet reminder text look like?

A genuine message is short, names the pet, carries no financial urgency, and points you towards a phone call or an online account you already know.

Examples of authentic wording:

"Clinique des Tilleuls: reminder, Jazz's vaccine is due on 12/11. To book: 04 xx xx xx xx. STOP to 36xxx"

"Ruby's therapeutic food order is available at reception until Saturday."

"I-CAD: your change-of-address declaration for pet no. 250269xxxxxxxxx has been recorded."

Three marks of legitimacy appear here:

1. The pet's name is correct. A scammer who buys or scrapes databases rarely has the dog's name — they'll write "your pet", "your dog", "your companion".
2. No payment link. A genuine reminder offers a phone number, opening hours, an online account. Never a shortened link followed by an amount.
3. The STOP opt-out and an identifiable sender. A marketing or follow-up message sent in bulk from France must include a way to unsubscribe, as the CNIL points out in its guidance on SMS marketing. A 3xxxx short code with "STOP" is, on the contrary, a good sign.

To learn more about reading a sender ID, our guide to decoding a short code or an alphanumeric sender sets out the numbering ranges used in France.

What are the three most common scam scenarios?

Just three, but very finely tuned: the fake microchip update, the fake "pet found" alert and the fake insurance refund.

1. "Your microchip needs updating: €1.90"

This is the pet version of the fake customs clearance fee text. The amount is trivial, the obligation looks administrative, and the landing site mimics an official portal with a "pet identification" form followed by a card payment.

The trap isn't the €1.90. It's registering your bank card on a page that will then trigger either a recurring subscription or an attempted payment of several hundred euros, validated by a code received by text. The mechanics are exactly those described in our analysis of the fake customs clearance fee text.

What you need to know: updating your contact details in the identification registry is done from your keeper's account on the official I-CAD website, or through your vet. A change of contact details is never announced by an unsolicited text asking you to pay urgently.

2. "A pet matching yours has been found"

This one is the cruellest, because it targets the most human reflex there is. The message announces that a dog or a cat has been taken in, and offers a link to "see the photo" or "confirm it's yours". The link leads either to a credential-harvesting page or to a premium-rate number to call back.

An even more perverse variant: the message arrives a few hours after you post a lost-pet notice on a local group or a classified ads site. The scammer didn't need a database — you published your number yourself, hoping for a call. It's the same mechanism that hits online sellers, detailed in our article on scam texts that follow a Leboncoin or Vinted listing.

The right reflex: a pet that has genuinely been found and is identified prompts a registry lookup by a vet, a shelter or the pound, who then call you. You'll be asked for the microchip number and some descriptive details — never for a bank card or a code received by text.

3. "Your €112 refund is pending"

The fake pet insurance text copies the layout of genuine claims-handling messages. It announces a refund blocked for want of "valid bank details" and offers to let you re-enter them. No insurer ever asks for an IBAN again via a text link: changing a bank account goes through an authenticated online account or written correspondence.

How can you check a pet-related text in under two minutes?

By re-establishing contact through a channel you choose, never the one the message imposes on you.

1. Don't touch the link. Not even out of curiosity: some pages log the opening and confirm that the number is live.
2. Look for the pet's name in the text. Missing, or replaced by "your pet" → immediate suspicion.
3. Check the sender. A French 3xxxx short code or a clinic's name is plausible. An unknown 06/07, an international number or an exotic prefix for an "official" message is not.
4. Read the full URL, without clicking. Fake domains add a word: a name mixing "icad", "veto" or "identification" with a far-fetched suffix (.info, .shop, one hyphen too many) is a fake.
5. Call the clinic back on the number in your pet's health record — not the one in the text. Your pet's paper health booklet, or a document wallet for pet paperwork where you keep the identification card and vaccination certificate, remains the most reliable source for finding the right number.
6. Log in to your keeper's account by typing the address yourself, from your browser bookmarks.

If doubt lingers, the rule is constant: a genuinely compulsory procedure is never settled within 48 hours by text message. The French administration writes, follows up, and allows time for appeals.

What should you do if the text is fraudulent?

Report it to 33700, then block the sender. Reporting is free from mainland France and from the overseas departments, on all four networks.

The procedure, on iPhone as on Android:

1. Press and hold the fraudulent message, then choose Forward.
2. Send it to 33700.
3. You'll receive an automatic reply asking for the number or sender ID of the message: reply by copying exactly what was displayed (the short code, the 06/07, or the alphanumeric name).
4. Then delete the message and block the sender.

33700 is the reporting scheme for unsolicited electronic communications, run by the mobile operators and the AF2M under the oversight of Arcep. It doesn't open an individual case file: it feeds a bulk processing system that makes it possible to cut off sending numbers and shut down the services involved. Our article on what actually happens to a report sent to 33700 sets out that chain.

For SMS phishing attempts, the complementary reflex is to file a report on the cybermalveillance.gouv.fr platform, which publishes a dedicated factsheet on "smishing", and on Phishing Initiative to get the fraudulent page taken down.

And if you've already clicked and paid?

Every hour counts, but nothing is lost. Three actions, in this order.

1. Block the card used, through your banking app or the interbank lost-and-stolen declaration service on 0 892 705 705.
2. Dispute the debits. Article L. 133-18 of the French Monetary and Financial Code provides for the refund of unauthorised payment transactions; where fraud is involved, the window for disputing runs up to 13 months for a transaction within the European Economic Area. The official source can be consulted on service-public.fr.
3. File a complaint, online or at a police station, with screenshots of the text, the full URL and your bank statement.

The details of these steps are set out in our guide to the 72 hours after falling for an SMS scam.

How can you cut down the number of "pet" texts you receive?

By sorting them at source: anything to do with care belongs in a text message, anything to do with marketing doesn't need your mobile number.

• Reply STOP to purely commercial follow-ups (discounts on kibble, grooming offers). Sending STOP to the short code shown is free and ends the mailing list in question, without removing vaccination reminders if the clinic separates its lists properly.
• Ask for email instead for non-urgent communications: this is your right to object under the GDPR, and the clinic should be able to configure it.
• Don't publish your number in plain sight in a lost-pet notice: use a secondary number instead, or go through the relaying charity's page. Our method for compartmentalising with a second number applies very well to this situation.
• Put your physical contact details where they count: an engraved collar tag with a name and a phone number remains, in 2026, the fastest way for a passer-by to bring your cat back — far faster than a microchip scan, which requires a reader and a professional.
• Check once a year that your details are up to date in the identification registry. An out-of-date number means a legitimate alert you'll never receive — and clear ground for the fake ones.

The special case of boarding kennels, dog walkers and pet-sitting apps

Pet-sitting platforms add a layer of risk, because they put two private individuals in touch who exchange a mobile number very quickly.

The classic pattern: a fake "owner" contacts a pet-sitter, asks to pay in advance for a long stay, sends a fake transfer confirmation and then demands a partial refund of an "overpayment". Or the reverse: a fake sitter demands a deposit via a link before any meeting takes place.

Three simple safeguards:

• stay within the platform's messaging system until the first real meeting;
• refuse any payment via a link sent by text, even "to speed things up";
• keep the exchanges: a time-stamped screenshot is usable evidence, as our article on the legal weight of a text message in France explains.

For home-based pet sitting, a pet care logbook recording treatments, feeding times and the vet's number saves you from having to exchange that information by text with a stranger — and therefore from feeding a database you no longer control.

Key takeaways

A pet-related text is legitimate when it names the pet, offers a phone number rather than a link, and contains no short-deadline financial demand. It's fraudulent as soon as it combines administrative urgency, a small sum to pay and a link. Between the two, there's only one judgement call: hang up on the text and call back yourself.

You can check the nature of a sender at any time on our page devoted to short codes and SMS numbering in France, and find the full reporting procedure in our 33700 guide.

Frequently asked questions

Does I-CAD really send text messages?

Notifications linked to a procedure you've initiated (change of keeper, update of contact details, declaration of a found pet) may be sent to you. On the other hand, no microchip update is ever paid for via a link received in an unsolicited text: if in doubt, log in to your keeper's account by typing the official address yourself.

Is there a charge to update my dog's identification details?

Changes to the keeper's contact details are made through the identification registry's online account or by your vet. Any applicable fees are published on the official I-CAD website: check them there, never on a page reached from a text message link.

How can I tell whether a "pet found" alert is genuine?

A pet that is identified and found prompts a registry lookup by a professional — vet, shelter, pound — who calls you and asks for the microchip number. If the message demands a payment, a code received by text or a call back to a premium-rate number, it's a scam.

Will replying STOP to a vet's text cancel my vaccine reminders?

Not if the clinic keeps its marketing lists separate from its care reminders, which is what sound consent management requires. If you're unsure, ask the clinic directly to keep only the health reminders.

Should I report to 33700 or file a complaint?

The two aren't mutually exclusive. 33700 serves to get the sending number cut off; a complaint serves your personal case — essential if money has been taken from your account. Report it immediately, and file the complaint as soon as you've gathered your screenshots.