Duplicate LSA Accounts: Competitor Gaming the System with Shared Reviews?

[UniqueTradesMarketer]

Hey Everyone,

New-ish member here, so I apologize if this is a bit wordy! I wanted to bring up an issue regarding a competitor's Local Services Ads (LSA) accounts. I manage an LSA account for a plumbing company, and recently, we noticed a competitor's second LSA account under a different license. What's concerning is that the title of this new LSA implies they offer HVAC services, which they don't – all their posted services are plumbing-related, just like their main LSA account.

The real issue arises with reviews. All reviews from their main LSA plumbing account are automatically being posted on the second LSA "HVAC" account. It's a copy-paste scenario – same reviewer, same review, at the same time. This effectively gives their company two "separate" LSAs sharing reviews, which means they're double dipping on leads in the same area and services. From my understanding, this shouldn't even be possible, as reviews should only be posted under one LSA.

Further research revealed that having two LSAs for the same service in the same zip code is against LSA policy. I've reached out to LSA support, and while they've "escalated" the issue, both their LSA accounts – serving the same zip codes and services, and sharing reviews – are still active.

Has anyone else encountered a similar situation or have any insights on how to address this further?

Thanks in advance for any input!

 

[Chris Barnard]

Hey, no worries on the wordiness.

So if they have one account for Plumber and one account for HVAC, I believe that is still ok with Google, if there's no overlap in services - i.e. they both target Plumber and HVAC. Could the reviews be from the same GBP that's associated with each LSA account?

 

[UniqueTradesMarketer]

I appreciate the input! That's the thing - even though the second LSA is titled "*Company Name* Heating, Cooling and Plumbing," their listed job types are all plumbing related which is also true for their main "*Company Name* Plumbing Services" LSA account.

What's really strange is that whenever a customer leaves a review on their main plumbing LSA, it's automatically posted on the second LSA (Unsure if this has to do with GBP; I'll look into that. Thanks!) However, because both accounts share reviews, that means neither account ever falls behind on reviews and both continue to rank high on LSA. Just yesterday, their two LSA accounts were both in the top 3 spots for most plumbing key terms in our zip code.

I did hear back from LSA and their internal team is "looking into" the case. Fingers crossed! I'll make sure to update this thread if I make any progress. Thanks again!

 

[Chris Barnard]

I know you're already engaged with support, but here's another route for reporting violations:

https://support.google.com/localservices/contact/issue_with_provider?sjid=3394087033117100282-NA

 

[UniqueTradesMarketer]

I know you're already engaged with support, but here's another route for reporting violations:

Report Misconduct or Abuse - Local Services Help

Many thanks! I'll use this form to report the issue today and will follow up on the thread with any updates.