Hilarious way a frustrated Business Owner fights back against spam listings

[James Watt]

I saw a post from Tim Capper (one of the top contributors on the Google My Business forum for those who don't know) on the Local Pros Google+ community I got a kick out of, and thought others might enjoy it too.

As most people here know, some industries have huge problems with spam, and it can be very frustrating for small business owners to try and compete with other businesses not playing by the rules. Luckily (?) Google has a few other holes in their system that let this business owner fight back...

There are certain industries around the world where hijacked Google business pages are so abundant and so blatant that finding a legitimate business page, is the same as finding a needle in the proverbial haystack.

So what happens when Google can?t get a grip on these hijacked listings? Frustrated users step in with this?
Read More.

Hilarious, and I bet it worked pretty well while the business owner was waiting for Google to take down the flagged spam listings.

For those who don't already know, the reason this business owner was able to do this, is because anyone can upload images to GMB pages, and if the business isn't fully filled out that can even end up as the main profile image of the business (I not infrequently see cases on the GMB forum where that happens even if the profile already has actual images uploaded by the business owner). This story's a good reminder to keep an eye on your business images, because stuff like this still happens sometimes.

Anyone here ever had to personally deal with clients images getting hijacked? I see it happen a lot on the GMB forums, but I haven't ran into too many cases in the wild.

 

[JoyHawkins]

This is hilarious. Yes I had a client who once cancelled with his former SEO and they uploaded photos of poo to his listing as "payback"

 

[Linda Buquet]

Good share James. Thanks for taking the time to post.

It's a frustrating situation and I can see why the business owner felt the need to do something.
But it is funny too!

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

That's the same loophole a spammer has used against legit businesses, trying to hijack their customers. Nice to see the loophole being used for good, not evil.