Dr Gary Michelson wants everyone to think that he's a caring and giving person. On one hand he donates a lot of money to his own charities. On the other hand that money just sat there for years while he was found by the IRS to have committed tax evasion and tax fraud in the amount of about $48,000,000 for 2000 and 2001 not including penalties. Gary used to rant that non-profit art museums are just "tax evasion." Then he gets popped for tax evasion after buying into tax shelters that weren't legal per the IRS.
If Gary Michelson gives something, he always wants something in return. I worked for him while he was considering buying and then bought the microchip entity. His plan was to buy the chips at a discount based on volume. He'd then donate the chips to the public shelters. In return he wanted the data on all the pet owners to sell it to make money from advertising, marketing revenue by selling the data, selling access to the data, selling access to the registrants to other companies. It's kind of like Facebook offering its services for free so they can collect and sell your data to advertisers or people who want to influence the US elections and harm our nation.
Below is part of the disclaimer from Gary's chip registry site.
"We may combine your information with information we collect from other companies and use it to improve and personalize our services, content and advertising."
Gary Michelson thinks everything is a "scam." If someone is making a profit of one penny off of him, it's a scam. It someone sells a cake for $20, it's a scam because he could buy the ingredients for $2.00. Gary never considers the experience and expertise needed to make a good cake or to find land that will increase in value.
I agree that chips are pretty cheap relative to the prices they used to sell them for to the public in 2005. I agree that chips need to be registered if you want to be reunited with your pet. Gary forgets that it costs money to input the data into the system and maintain it. His non-profit paid for that not expecting a profit. A for profit business would have to pay for that and expect a profit if they are to survive. That doesn't make them "scammers" or "greedy." If anyone is a greedy scammer that would be Gary Michelson who defrauds the IRS and lies about people about crimes.
Gary Michelson offered his free pet registry to spite the for profit chip sellers, resellers and pet registries. His non-profit operates under a different business model than a for profit business. Instead of selling the chips and registration service, he sells the data of the pet owners, registers. He didn't start the registry out of the goodness of his heart.
Pethealth bought his pet registry this year. They offer pet health insurance. If you register your chip, pet with them, expect marketing and advertising. They state this in their disclaimer. They also bought Chameleon and PetHarbor animal software systems. Those systems controlled the animals in public shelters. I know Gary Michelson wanted the data from the chips he donated to Los Angeles City and County animal shelters. The city was discussing whether or not they are allowed to share that information without outside entities. That's when Gary started his registry.
"Microchipping your pets doesn't have to be expensive. Paying for registration is a scam.
Dr. Gary Michelson
This is an op-ed by Dr. Gary Michelsonfounder and funder of the Michelson Found Animals Foundation, which operates the completely free Found Animals Pet Microchip Registry. The registry was recently acquired by pet health insurance company Pethealth, which also operates its own free pet registry."
"I have no problem with companies that readily disclose to new customers that they offer absolutely free pet registrations but, in addition, offer "concierge" services that provide greatly expanded recovery services for those who wish to pay for those additional services.
Registering your pets – for free?
So my purpose is two-fold. First, I want to make pet owners aware that, regardless of what company provided the microchip, that any chip can be registered with one of the free registries for life.
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And second, to put the municipal animal services and veterinarians who purchase these chips on notice, that they should make their decisions not just on the minimal cost of the microchip alone, but rather on the total costs that their clients will be forced to pay for the microchip and the registration. These same parties should advise their clients, regardless of from whom they purchase the chips, that there are high-quality services providing free lifelong pet registrations."
