Content by keyserholiday in May, 2026

You need to post on the help forum and wait for a PE to pick up the thread.

PE’s can’t view your profile or access your case ID.

It was good in theory, but not in application. First, they sent letters to 700 businesses warning them to ensure that their platforms police fake reviews. Then they passed the new rules to redress businesses up to $51,744 per fake review. They don't have enough staff to investigate everyone, so...

Yosef ran a large-scale lead-generation network across the United States. Here is the press release announcing the lawsuit. Hopefully, we will see more lawsuits in the future. Sadly, the GBPs are still live on Google, and people are answering the phones.

If you only have one GBP live on Google, there is nothing to merge. Google won’t merge a live GBP with a duplicate GBP. It’s the same as having an unverified GBP in your dashboard, it doesn’t exist.

Google pestway lawsuit. You will see how the Michigan Attorney General investigated the owners of Pestway for deceptive marketing practices. Pestway created 100s of lead-generation GBPs through their website. Consumers didn't know these sites were managed by Pestway.

This type of website is not only black hat, it’s violates consumer protection laws. Not only can it backfire, it could lead to you and your client being fined.

The best course of action it to ask the client to edit the review until it’s published. This forum has a rule against linking to the help forum. Please edit the post to keep your thread live.

This would not fall under illegal activity. Google would see illegals activity as string up a GBP for prostitution, sexual massages, illegal drug dealing, and things of similar nature. If they are bared from practicing in their state, then that needs to be used when you redress the business.

There isn’t a work around. Once Google has marked a GBP as a duplicate, there is no way to do it. I wish there was.

My bad. If the original was marked as a duplicate, there is no way to reverse it. You need to optimize the new GBP from scratch.

If the duplicate GBP is not verified, you don't need to worry. They can remove it from their dashboard.

I am sorry but none of these items cause suspension or verification issues.

PlacesScout is aware of these issues and they are currently working on them.

They updated their database on April 17th, and things haven't been the same since. I am asking them to take a look.

Google won't take action with a police report. Your client needs to sue the reviewer in court. Once a court case has been ruled in your client's favor, they can then petition Google to remove the review.