Story time:
One day, the organisation handling pet registration in my country called me up. The person on the phone clearly tried to put on their most compassionate voice when they told me my cat was unfortunately found dead, run over by a car.
Luckily, my cat was chilling in my lap in that very moment, or I would have freaked out.

Turns out, there was a switch-up with the registration number of another cat.
I cleared it up with them, but 4 weeks later I still received a letter asking how I'm doing with the loss of my companion and if I might consider adopting another cat.

I never did find out if the owners of the cat that got run over were ever informed.