My business has been under attack for the last five years by a competitor. He has left hundreds of fake reviews, and then started a large scale suggest an edit attack resulting in us basically not being able to have a GBP because it is constantly suspended. Recently, after one of the suggest an edit attacks got us suspended, we were reinstated, but couldn't control or make changes to our GBP. I asked Google for assistance and for some reason a duplicate profile was created which we have control of, and my competitor somehow ended up with control of our original GBP. He is using our business name and has created a fake website that is a word for word copy of our website. He has changed the phone number also. Our original listing has our ranking authority, our reviews, and the Google street view photos we paid for on it. Our competitor then started attacking the duplicate listing that was created with photo shopped pictures and fake reviews and the duplicate profile was then suspended.
I have been emailing back and forth with Google support about the duplicate GBP, and asked for them to grant us ownership of our original GBP.
Google granted us access to our original listing but did not give us primary ownership of it. I then asked for primary ownership and Google responded and said only the primary owner can transfer primary ownership. My competitor isn't going to grant primary ownership back to me since he is the one who stole the listing to begin with. If I make any changes to the listing my competitor will know I now have access to the listing and will remove my access since he is now the primary owner.
I emailed Google a copy of my drivers license as proof I am the actual owner and copies of the secretary of state business listing and a copy of our office lease both showing my name as the owner of the business.
I have hired an attorney, but this is going to be a slow process and we are experiencing significant financial losses.
Our lives are being destroyed by all the suspensions and now the theft of our business listing.
Does anyone have any idea what else we can do?
Would a post on the Google forums help and is there a moderator willing to help us?
I have been emailing back and forth with Google support about the duplicate GBP, and asked for them to grant us ownership of our original GBP.
Google granted us access to our original listing but did not give us primary ownership of it. I then asked for primary ownership and Google responded and said only the primary owner can transfer primary ownership. My competitor isn't going to grant primary ownership back to me since he is the one who stole the listing to begin with. If I make any changes to the listing my competitor will know I now have access to the listing and will remove my access since he is now the primary owner.
I emailed Google a copy of my drivers license as proof I am the actual owner and copies of the secretary of state business listing and a copy of our office lease both showing my name as the owner of the business.
I have hired an attorney, but this is going to be a slow process and we are experiencing significant financial losses.
Our lives are being destroyed by all the suspensions and now the theft of our business listing.
Does anyone have any idea what else we can do?
Would a post on the Google forums help and is there a moderator willing to help us?
