GMB Postcards Verification / Contact

[Jeffrey]

Hi I have a couple of big clients that are having difficulty receiving postcards for verification. One of my clients currently have claimed listings on google but they cannot find what account it is under. So I am in the process of re-verifying their listing right now. I have sent out one round of postcards on November 20th and my client has told me that they have not arrived. I contacted google via a form and they said that for this situation I would have to send out 5 "failed" postcards 2 weeks apart for google to manually look into it. This means that I will have to wait 10 weeks to get these listings under my account if the postcards never arrive. Is this correct?

Also is there anyway to contact GMB Support in the U.S.? Every single time I get in contact with a support person in India.

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[mborgelt]

I don't know if GMB has any support offices in the USA but you can try requesting access/ownership from the current owner and they may be able to identify the email address that controls the account.

 

[Jeffrey]

Hi mborgelt, thanks for replying back. I have sent my client the hit that google gives is, ex: ab...@gmail.com, but my client thinks that this email belonged to an employee that used to work there. So she has no way of logging back into the existing account unfortunately. I really wish that there was a more effective method to verify them other than postcards.

 

[Casey Donovan]

Hi Jeffrey. Is your client a storefront/office or service area business?

 

[Jeffrey]

Hi Casey, this is a storefront eye care center.

 

[Casey Donovan]

From my experience, if you send the request like @mborgelt mentioned, the current owner of the listing will have 7 days to respond. If they don't, you can then move forward with claiming that existing listing.

As for the postcards failing to deliver, Google does offer a video verification option via Google hangouts. I have never heard of the 5 failed postcards requirement. Typically if one postcard doesn't show up within 14 days, video verification can be done.

 

[Jeffrey]

Hi guys, so here is where I am at: We have this eye care practice that has 6 locations. All of their locations are currently claimed under the same account. This account belongs to an old employee of the practice. I have requested access to all of them and was gained access after 7 days. Now I am in the process of re-verifying these listings. I have sent out postcards to all of these locations on November 20th. They said that they have not received any. My client could have missed these postcards or they could have got lost in the mail or was never sent. I am not sure. But I reached out to Google yesterday through this form. They called me back and basically they said that since I am re-verifying these listings they can't do anything until I have sent out 5 failed postcards, each 2 weeks apart. I was on the phone with them for 50 mins and was unable to re-verify them. Now I am here. Trying to figure out if there is any other way to get these listings re-verified other than postcards. I have had quite a lot of difficulty with postcards in the past.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

That sounds insane. Google is ridiculous sometimes.

First, I would explain the situation to your client. Tell him it could take up to 3.5 months (an extra 4 weeks to go through the manual verification process) if you go this route. Or he can help you find who owns the email. Usually when faced when something like this, the business owner decides to actually help and can resolve the situation by getting in contact with old employees, etc.

You could also use the same method above to get the business owner to actually watch out for the postcards. A lot of times they're so busy they don't take you serious about the postcards. Explaining it could take 3.5 months makes them serious and then they coordinate correctly and have people look out for the postcards.

Using the above 2 methods I haven't had to manually verify in probably close to 6 months or so, and we do a lot of verifications.

Now, if all else fails, I would get in touch with someone else at Google. See if they tell you the same thing. If they do, then I would try Twitter support and explain the situation and see what they say since they're US based.

Maybe you need @JoyHawkins to weigh in too.