eLocal hijacked my Bing Listing

[wexed]

Hi,

I am little confused. I am also going to reach out to Bing.

Over the last year I had some minor issues (I thought) with my Bing listing. I had to confirm it several times through postcard and overall i just didn't feel good about it (i don't quite remember why).

So today I finally noticed that eLocal somehow hijacked it. They added their tracking phone number and their website to the listing.

When I login to manage my listing everything looks normal. It shows my website and it shows my phone number. But when I pull it up once i'm logged out it reverts to the elocal info.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Is it possible there are actually 2 different listings?

 

[wexed]

That' what I was thinking but when i click public listing link from my account it takes me to the listing with the elocal info.

 

[Cherie Dickey]

I would reach out to support. I know there are sometimes instances with Google listings refusing to update user updates from the dash, and support has to get involved. I'd wager this is similar - someone updated your listing as a user, and your info isn't pushing through for some reason.

 

[wexed]

oh yeah i reached out to support and they promised to get it fixed, but i figured some people here might find it interesting how this happened and also wanted to see if it happened to others.

 

[wexed]

oh gosh. so elocal changed my phone number for all the Yext listings. I guess I have to bite the bullett and pay for Yext to get this rectified?

 

[wexed]

So I paid for Yext. yext is now jamming through my listings.

Problem is they are creating new listings for me. So now I have duplicates across the board.

Messaging Yext to get the duplicates removed.

So elocal were just on their own able to change my phone number across the board.

I guess I should get a Yext marketer account and do the same across the board for every company in my market and change the phone number to mine? What's stopping anyone other than having ethics a notch above elocal?

 

[wexed]

ha so much fun. So Yext talks on their website about "Patented duplicate suppression".

Everyone of my listings has a duplicate. They didn't suppress a single one on their own.

 

[Cherie Dickey]

How frustrating!! The duplicate issue is why I've never really trusted Yext.

I'm confused as to how elocal was able to do this without your consent... did you have an account with them at one time?

 

[wexed]

I signed up for an account with them for "lead generation".

Before signing up I asked them to make sure that "lead generation" just means changing my listings to theirs.

They said no, they would never do that.

From the on I noticed current customers calling me and eLocal claiming that they "generated" that customer.

Eventually one of them told me that he asked Siri and Siri gave him the eLocal info.

So the more I looked the more I found changed listings.

I wasn't sure how to handle it, but I signed up with Yext since they have the ability to change these things quickly and it looks like eLocal only changed the one's affiliated with Yext.

 

[Justin Mosebach]

I'd go to Bing Places support inside the Dashboard... they have a handy chat feature that I've used successfully many times.

 

[Cherie Dickey]

I wasn't sure how to handle it, but I signed up with Yext since they have the ability to change these things quickly and it looks like eLocal only changed the one's affiliated with Yext.

It's possible that eLocal uses Yext for directories themselves, and they would be under a different account.... that would be what I would investigate next.

 

[wexed]

That's exactly correct. Once I signed up for yext they immediately told me they soon told me that and went ahead to cancel the elocal yext account.