Google labeled us as a duplicate of our competitor

[Phyllis]

Google has listed our company as our competitor. I have contacted Google support numerous times and they continue to call us by the name of our competitor. They gave our photos and reviews to our competitor's GMB page. They merged the pages. I still have access to the backend GMB page that is listed as a duplicate, but Google is sending verification to our competitor. We have tried and tried. It's crazy how they act at Google. They just keep sending us an email script about how to get verified and they will not acknowledge that Google has mislabeled us. Our competitor will not give us the code to reclaim or GMB page.

As a workaround, I created a new GMB page, but I didn't delete the old page. In searches, our competitor's GMB page always shows up and we never do unless I type our business name. Search: hot air balloons - Asheville NC.

Our company is ashevilleballooncompany.com. Their company is ashevillehotairballoons.com.

I have posted many times on Google Forums and they do not offer any help, just the usual script, get a postcard, or phone verification, or contact Google support.

Google labeled us as a duplicate of our competitor - Google My Business Community

Google labeled us as a duplicate of our competitor - Google My Business Community

Google labeled us as a duplicate of our competitor - Google My Business Community

 

[Rich Owings]

I asked Phyllis to post here, to see if we could get this resolved. My understanding is that they merged the listing in question with that of a competitor.

@keyserholiday I see you replied to several of Phyllis's threads. She tells me that she has case numbers and has always replied to their emails, but eventually they stop responding. What do you recommend as a next step?

 

[keyserholiday]

I remember this one from the forum and I requested storefront photos or photos showing signage. I never got them. I have to be able to determine that these businesses are eligible for GMB before I can assist further.

 

[Rich Owings]

Neither business has a storefront, as far as I can tell. They are both hot air balloon businesses, and both use the same grocery store parking lot to meet customers. The fact that they were both using the same location as their GMB address may have triggered the merge. Since that time, Phyllis set up a new listing that uses a private address. Both companies should be listed as service area businesses.

 

[Phyllis]

Thank you for helping with this issue. I did send images to Google support. Sorry, I didn't send it to you. Please see attached. However, the business is not a brick-and-mortar business.

Both balloon companies in Asheville meet passengers at the same location, a supermarket at 1572 SandHill Road Asheville, NC 28715. Google allows the other to use that address but does not allow us to use that address. I have changed the address to my home office in our GMB profile and I sent photos of my home to Google support when they requested proof of existence.

Google responded like this:
Hi Phyllis,

Greetings from the Google My Business Support Team!

This email is regarding your business listing "Asheville Balloon Company" about the verification concern. After the investigation, we found that there is another business listing "Asheville Hot Air Balloons" which is located at "1572 Sand Hill Rd, Candler, NC 28715, United States" and showing live on Google, and here is the link.

You need to request for ownership and then wait for 3 days for the owner to respond if you want that business listing or else if you just want to create a new business listing, then kindly create a new business listing with the correct and complete address.

I understand you are concerned about taking ownership of the business profile "Asheville Hot Air Balloons" located at "1572 Sand Hill Rd, Candler, NC 28715, United States".

The business profile is already verified under a different email id (hint- as…@gmail.com ).

• If you’re the profile owner but can’t sign in to your Google My Business (GMB) account using this email address, follow the steps for getting back into your account.
• If you know who the current listing owner is, contact them directly and ask them to grant you the necessary access. Learn more about listing access types.
• If you don’t know the current owner, follow the steps outlined in this article to request access from the current listing owner
• Go to business.google.com/add.
  • Enter your business name “Asheville Hot Air Balloons”, then choose it from the search results.
  • Click Continue. You'll get a message: “Someone else verified the profile. If you're authorized to manage the profile, you can request ownership from the current profile owner”
  • Click Request access and fill out the form.
  • Click Submit. The current listing owner will receive an email asking them to get in touch with you, and you’ll receive an email notification. Make sure you had received this email notification that confirms successful ownership request submission

Once the request has been raised, you just need to wait for 3 days and if you do not get any response from the current owner within 3 days, you just need to click on the "View Request" option present in the confirmation email that you would have received after requesting ownership of the listing and you will be able to claim and verify the profile in your account

For more knowledge on the ‘Ownership Request’ Process please refer to this article. Tip: Check out the video present in this link for a step-by-step guide.

 

[Phyllis]

At first, I had our business as a service area listing, but I changed it to a specific location because I wanted to compete with the other company that was getting away with using the Grocery store address.

 

[keyserholiday]

This is a major mess. There are two business profiles (BP) at the same address. BP 1 and BP 2. Both listings are in violation of Google's TOS for showing the address. They both need to be removed from your or their account. You need to then update the address for the original duplicate bp to your address and clear it. Then you can contact support and ask them to unmerge your BP and merge the two other BP if this is in fact your address. Google won't help you if your BP is outside of compliance or if you have other BPs using the same address, especially if you are not hiding the address. You can't merely hide the address on the verified BP(s), as Google will still find those listing and prevent you from being able to be helped.

 

[Phyllis]

Ok I'll change it to a service area address, but I still am unable to verify because Google is contacting the competitor.

 

[Phyllis]

Ok I'll change it to a service area address, but I still am unable to verify because Google is contacting the competitor.

I was able to change the new GMB page with the same name with no problem but the old one that Goggle gave to our competitor will not allow any changes.

 

[Phyllis]

I was able to change the new GMB page with the same name with no problem but the old one that Goggle gave to our competitor will not allow any changes.

It might be because I'm not the owner, I am the site manager. However, when I requested permission it says the competitor's business name, but for the owner, it says Tom Mackie. Tom is the owner of the hijacked GMB page and the balloon company.

 

[Phyllis]

This is a major mess. There are two business profiles (BP) at the same address. BP 1 and BP 2. Both listings are in violation of Google's TOS for showing the address. They both need to be removed from your or their account. You need to then update the address for the original duplicate bp to your address and clear it. Then you can contact support and ask them to unmerge your BP and merge the two other BP if this is in fact your address. Google won't help you if your BP is outside of compliance or if you have other BPs using the same address, especially if you are not hiding the address. You can't merely hide the address on the verified BP(s), as Google will still find those listing and prevent you from being able to be helped.

see new attached. who are they sending the request to? I already have access and I'm the manager. Tom is the onwer. Why does it say the competitor's business name?

 

[Phyllis]

This is a major mess. There are two business profiles (BP) at the same address. BP 1 and BP 2. Both listings are in violation of Google's TOS for showing the address. They both need to be removed from your or their account. You need to then update the address for the original duplicate bp to your address and clear it. Then you can contact support and ask them to unmerge your BP and merge the two other BP if this is in fact your address. Google won't help you if your BP is outside of compliance or if you have other BPs using the same address, especially if you are not hiding the address. You can't merely hide the address on the verified BP(s), as Google will still find those listing and prevent you from being able to be helped.

 

[Phyllis]

Thank you. I took your advice and removed all of the addresses. There are now three GMB pages. The original was labeled as a duplicate of our competitor, plus two more that I created as a workaround. Google led me to another request from the other balloon company. See attached. We hope this is it and we can get our GMB page back.

 

[Phyllis]

One more thing... When I logged in and looked at users there was someone we didn't permit to be a manager.
We don't know who Joe is and we didn't add him. He just showed up in our account. His email address is mrjosephjacinto@gmail.com. I am going to remove him from the primary owner's account. It has two-step identification.

 

[Phyllis]

New email from our competitor.

 

[Phyllis]

Addison: I'm not sure I understand... My understanding is that your old page doesn't exist anymore; it was consolidated into mine (quite, unfortunately). Can you show me evidence that your old page still exists? Or better yet... Walk me through what it is you want to do with backend access to my page, and I'll consider doing the task for you. I'm all for being helpful, if there's a way to be helpful but, please understand... I am not going to give anyone backend access to my Google Business Page.

Phyllis:
We don’t want access to your GMB page. We just want Google to untangle our pages and would appreciate you helping us to tell Google what is going on. I am working on making that happen. I have a new notice, but I don’t know what you are receiving. This is what Google told me. See attached. We might finally get Google to fix this finally. Hopefully! The way I see it and according to the message if we haven’t heard from you by Thursday then we get our page back, fingers crossed.

Also, there was an unauthorized user in our account that I deleted today. Perhaps that had something to do with the strange merger of accounts.

 

[Phyllis]

Addison:
You sent me a request to become a manager of the AHAB My Google Business Page. Tom sent a "Request for Ownership" of the AHAB Google business page. So... you stated "We don’t want access to your GMB page" then why do you continue to send access requests? Why send an ownership request? If you don't want access to the AHAB Google My Business Page then what are we talking about?

How does giving you management access, and or giving Tom ownership of the AHAB google my business page untangle the two pages? Hypothetically speaking, if I gave you management or ownership privileges to the AHAB GMBP (which I am not inclined to do), how would you then separate the two pages and give me my page back?

Phyllis:
Google should be sending the request to us, but the wires are crossed and they are sending the request to you. They labeled us as a duplicate of you, but we are not and it’s very clear in the control panel that we have different names and owners and phone numbers and addresses. I don’t have access to your GMB backend and you don’t have access to our GMB backend.

I don’t know what they are sending in a request to you, but when I try to claim ownership they send the request to you. It should be going to us. I don’t know what they are sending to you. Is there a way that you can respond to them to tell them that when I send a request for ownership they should send it to us and not to you? We are not asking for management access to your GMB page. I cannot separate the two pages, only Google can fix this. We only ask that you do whatever you can do to tell Google that they have merged our GMB pages and your page is displaying our reviews and photos.

Here’s a place where you can contact Google to tell them about this issue from your side. Google My Business Help

 

[Rich Owings]

Phyllis,

Did you remove the two newest listings from your's or Tom's account? And will Google not let you add your address to the original listing?

 

[Phyllis]

Hey Rich,

I removed the addresses from all GMB accounts. I had to login as primary owner to change the one that was labeled duplicate to remove the address. I have 3 GMB accounts for the balloon company. Two were the workarounds because the 1st one was labeled duplicate. You might be able to find the 2 workarounds. Fly A Balloon and Asheville Balloon Company. The duplicate (orignially Asheville Balloon Company) however is only showing up in the merged account.

You aren't saying I need to permanantly delete anything are you?

 

[Rich Owings]

@Phyllis As @keyserholiday said...

There are two business profiles (BP) at the same address. BP 1 and BP 2. Both listings are in violation of Google's TOS for showing the address. They both need to be removed from your or their account. You need to then update the address for the original duplicate bp to your address and clear it. Then you can contact support and ask them to unmerge your BP and merge the two other BP if this is in fact your address. Google won't help you if your BP is outside of compliance or if you have other BPs using the same address, especially if you are not hiding the address. You can't merely hide the address on the verified BP(s), as Google will still find those listing and prevent you from being able to be helped.

To remove the listings from your 's or Tom's account, go to you GMB dashboard and check the box by those two listings that keyserholiday linked to. Then click Actions > Remove Business. You'll see some scary warnings but all it is doing is removing them from your account. This is the first step to getting Google to clean up this mess.