Issue Claiming Already-Claimed Listings

[Cordell Crowley]

So, everybody is familiar with the process of doing a Change of Ownership process on an already-claimed listing to claim the listing under a new email. We've been having issues since Monday with this not working properly.

The issue is this: When you first try to claim the listing, it's typically supposed to show you the hint (first 2 letters/whether or not it is gmail) of what the email address is that has control of the listing, but it's skipping that part. It's going straight into the blank fields where you enter the address and whatnot from scratch- even though you're attempting to claim an existing listing.

Once you enter the address, Google then pops up the alert about how "it looks like your business is already on Google! Is this your business?" and shows the listing we were trying to claim in the first place. Select the radio button, go on claiming as normal, and then it lets you do phonecall verification right then (instead of making you wait 7 days)- all without ever showing you the email hint.

Do the phonecall verification, and then the listing is marked as duplicate because it created a new listing instead of claiming the existing one like it's supposed to.

I remember this issue occurring back around May/June of last year and we have not run into it since then. But now, it's doing it for about 90% of our clients we try to set up on Google Maps and it's very frustrating. Unless the client knows their login information, we can't do Change of Ownership to get control of the listing.

Has anybody else run into this lately? I hadn't seen any other threads about it, so I wasn't sure. Just want to see if it's widespread or if it's something on our end.

 

[Cherie Dickey]

I'm having this issue as well. It's so frustrating.

Even the direct link to the request access form isn't working for me... it isn't giving the option to select "No" to the question asking if I can contact the current owner, so it's stuck in a loop of telling me to contact the owner and ask them to add me as a manager or owner.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Is this for a service area business? If so, this is what is supposed to happen. You need to first claim the listing (yes it sets up a duplicate) and then GMB support can merge them after you get the post card.

 

[Cherie Dickey]

No, mine aren't SABs as far as I can tell.

 

[adammaxum]

Just do what Joy said - create the 2nd listing and then contact GMB support to merge the listings together and you now have 1 verified listing in your account...it just requires a bit more work to reach the final solution.

 

[Cherie Dickey]

Even though the other listing is claimed by someone else? It's my understanding that Google will not merge listings unless one of them is unverified... I can't unverify a listing I don't have ownership of, which is where the issue is. I can't request ownership. Unless this has changed?

 

[Monica Simpson]

My client had this issue as well! Sorry, late to the party on this one.

We weren't shown the hint, entered info, only given postcard verify option. When we got the postcard and entered the code, it showed as duplicate. When customer support gave us a hint, we have no clue. We contacted customer support and that is when they gave us the masked email. GMB support ended.

Requested ownership access via GMB and no response. Its weird because the profile hasn't been maintained. The client did try to create a new profile before coming to us to claim the original so thats what could be happening.

 

[Cordell Crowley]

Is this for a service area business? If so, this is what is supposed to happen. You need to first claim the listing (yes it sets up a duplicate) and then GMB support can merge them after you get the post card.

It's happening with a variety of businesses- some that are SABs and some that aren't. The thing that's confusing for us is that we've been setting up these same types of businesses for years and it's never made us go through this protocol before, so what has changed?. I'm guessing Google is just getting stricter in general on this stuff? Seems very unnecessary.

The most frustrating part is that we have to manually call Google to get the email hint for what login has control of the account. Many of our clients unknowingly set up GMB listings years before using us, and roughly 90% of them have no idea what the login is. That hint of the first 2 letters and whether or not it's gmail is priceless to have when trying to speed things up and not wait 8 days for COO (once given the first 2 letters the client almost always knows the email), but we can't get that hint from simply looking up their listing as if we were going to claim it anymore.

The phone time from calling Google for the hint on each email is hurting efficiency as that can take anywhere from 5-20 minutes depending on how competent the support rep is and how long you have to be on hold. Compare this to the ~10 seconds it took before to just look their listing up to get the hint, and you can see the issue we're having. Before, even with SABs, we were at least able to get that email hint for claimed listings and now we can't because it just immediately begins the setup of a new listing instead of alerting us it's already claimed with "aa....@gmail.com"- even when we select the listing in the drop-down.

 

[adammaxum]

Hmm weird...google business being glitchy as usual most likely.

 

[ehg]

Joy alerted me on the thread here because I encountered the same issue in the last about 3 weeks several times as a product expert in the both GMB forums I am participating.

Encouraging now anyone having or noticing an addressed GMB listing without the button "claim this business" but not able to apply the procedure Request ownership of a business listing - Google My Business Help to post such listing in the GMB forum under the subject "can't request ownership about a claimed business - creating a dupe instead" providing of course a GMaps link to the listing in question.

 

[Cordell Crowley]

Joy alerted me on the thread here because I encountered the same issue in the last about 3 weeks several times as a product expert in the both GMB forums I am participating.

Encouraging now anyone having or noticing an addressed GMB listing without the button "claim this business" but not able to apply the procedure Request ownership of a business listing - Google My Business Help to post such listing in the GMB forum under the subject "can't request ownership about a claimed business - creating a dupe instead" providing of course a GMaps link to the listing in question.

Where in the GMB Forum would it need to be posted? The "Ownership Conflicts" board seems appropriate but I wasn't sure. We've learned to work around the issue but it would be nice to be able to just do a normal one-click "request access" COO again.

 

[ehg]

Just use the verification board of GMB: New Message - The Google Advertiser Community
Feel free to mention me "@Helmut Geissler" properly