Company GMB listing has been claimed by a third party

[Oliver Keates]

Hi Guys,

Looking at a GMB listing it has been claimed without permission from the company.

Two questions?

One

Are GMB listings created automatically by Google or does a human have to generate the GMB listing manually.

Two

What is the latest recommended procedure to tell Google when a third party has created and claimed your company GMB listing.

thanks

 

[JoyHawkins]

1. Both are true. They can be created automatically or by humans via Google My Business (you can create a listing for your business if one doesn't exist already).

2. This process is now automated. Here are the steps you should take:

1. Go ahead and try and claim the listing. It should tell you it’s verified and take you to this request access form.
2. When you fill that out, you’ll get an email. It’s imperative that you do not delete this email because you need it to appeal if the existing owner denies your request to transfer ownership.
3. The current owner has 7 days to respond. Do not contact GMB about this as they won’t do anything if it hasn’t been 7 days. The entire process is automated so you shouldn’t need to contact them at all.
4. If they grant you access within 7 days, your account now becomes the primary owner and they are demoted to a manager. This means you can go in and remove them, if needed.
5. If they deny you access or don’t respond in 7 days, pull up the email you received and click “view request”. If they denied you access, you should see a button to appeal. If they didn’t respond you should see a button that says “verify”. Both of these buttons do the same thing - they allow you to verify the listing via postcard. Once you successfully get the pin and enter it, this immediately boots the other user out completely and you are now the primary owner. This process essentially makes it impossible for someone to hold your listing hostage.

 

[C!Note]

We helped a client with this exact issue.
Basically went through the exact steps as what Joy says here, the only exception is we got the phone call option. Which saved us 2 weeks of waiting on pins and needles