Former Franchisee Going Independent But GBP suspended

[nicoco]

A client of mine is in the process of moving from being a franchisee to an independent trader. He will be using the same physical location/address but unfortunately, when trying to create a listing for his business it gets suspended.
I suspect this is because it is the same business type as the franchise and located at the same address so Google thinks it's a duplicate. Has anyone ever encountered this type of issue in the past, if so what would you recommend to fix it?

Many thanks

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Nico,

Yes that is very likely the reason why it was suspended.

Are you able to simply update the existing Google business profile?

 

[nicoco]

Hi Nico,

Yes that is very likely the reason why it was suspended.

Are you able to simply update the existing Google business profile?

Thanks Colan. I don't believe so as it is owned by the franchise. What would be the other alternative?

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Is the franchise open to working with him to sort this out?

 

[nicoco]

Is the franchise open to working with him to sort this out?

I'm not entirely sure. If they are I guess it would be just a matter of transferring ownership of the existing listing but what if they're not?

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Yes, I would suggest doing that. If they aren't open to that I would ask them to mark it as permanently closed.

 

[nicoco]

Yes, I would suggest doing that. If they aren't open to that I would ask them to mark it as permanently closed.

Many thanks Colan