Lost Ownership of Listing - Not Sure How to Get Back

[Luann]

We have a roofing client that we've had for several years and have been managing their GMB listing. A few months ago, their listing came up as a duplicate and it said we needed to request access from the current owner. Well it turns out one of their roofers has a separate website and uses his phone number, but the business name and address are the same. Google ended up making their listing the main one (somehow they also got all their reviews too).

We've requested ownership but have been denied. We've visited with the client regarding this. At first they didn't want us to do anything, but now they want their listing back. So, I requested ownership again but was denied again. Then it says you can try to Appeal, but all that does is takes you back to the listing and through the claiming process, which ends up with the other roofer's phone number.

What is the next step? We thought about creating a separate listing, but if we are using the same address that will end up as a duplicate as well. I asked the client if they could get this other roofer to use a different address, but it doesn't seem like he will do that. I'm not sure about the dynamic that is going on between the parties; it's rather strange.

Is there anything else we can do?

 

[JoyHawkins]

Do you know who the owner is that keeps denying you?

 

[Luann]

Not exactly. When they first denied it, they left a phone number, which I called. It's another marketing company that manages the listing for the other roofer. They were willing to work with us and offered to give access but not ownership. I figured that wouldn't be a good idea since we'd want to use different websites and phone numbers. It's just a weird situation.

I've reached out to Google to see if there's a way to verify the legitimate owner of the business. I haven't heard back on that yet.

 

[JoyHawkins]

So what GMB support will tell you to do then is to set up a new listing, verify it by postcard and then you can have GMB support merge them. Keep all your emails with the denied requests as well for reference. Make sure you verify it using the exact same address as the one you're trying to get access to.

 

[Luann]

Great. Thank you Joy! I will give that a try!