Mortgage lender client with an old listing showing her as "Permanently closed" that we can't get rid of

[kathleen.rhodes]

My mortgage lender client moved to a different mortgage company late last year. It took forever, with multiple video verifications for the edits to the profile with her new business name, address, phone, and URL to get verified. Just as we celebrated her/our success, we determined that the old listing is in fact still showing up, showing her name, the previous mortgage company, her old address, and her old phone number, which is marked in bright red, "Permanently closed." Obviously, this is bad for her business and for clients and prospects who are searching for her, but it also is in conflict with her licensure with the NMLS (Nationwide Multistate Licensing System & Registry). We can't use the GBP Help feature, because she doesn't have access to that GBP. In the past, we suggested edits and submitted various screenshots of the old, inaccurate listing and her current one, asking Google to remove her name from the old Profile, to no avail. We even tried the "Report a legal issue," since the old listing is not in compliance with her NMLS licensure. Any suggestions?!? Thanks!

 

[JS Girard]

I think closed permanently listings cannot be modified by suggestion in any way. Have you tried suggesting to reopen it at any point in the process?

 

[Tony Wang]

How old is the new listing? I think the closed listing should eventually stop showing up for general searches like "john smith mortgage lender" as the new listing becomes more prominent. It might still show for more specific searches that include the old company name.

 

[Stefan Somborac]

@kathleen.rhodes - Tricky!

If I understand correctly, you edited the existing profile to show the new name, address, etc., and once it was verified, you found another profile with the old information (marked Permanently Closed). If Google automatically created that Permanently Closed profile with information it found online, it would be unverified.

Is the Permanently Closed profile unverified?

If so, that's a good indicator that Google made it. This, in turn, indicates that Google thinks that business, with those details, exists. This, in turn, means you probably won't have much luck using "Suggest an edit" to remove the profile.

You can try using "Suggest an edit" on Maps to mark it as open, as suggested by @JS Girard. Then you could claim it, correct the details, verify it* and then merge the profiles. I recommend you do this slowly, so Google doesn't see your activity as spammy, and use a different email account, just in case it does. Then, add a common user on both profiles and use that user account to contact Google and ask for a merge.

* You should contact Google and request a merge before going through the trouble of verification. It might work.

As I write it, I wonder if I'm over-complicating things. @Tony Wang's suggestion that the Permanently Closed profile will fade from the search results except for the most specific of queries presents a far simpler approach: do nothing and wait for it to fade away!

 

[kathleen.rhodes]

Hey @Tony Wang and @Stefan Somborac - I apologize for the late reply. I ended up suggesting an edit that the business had re-opened. Then, I was able to suggest an edit to remove my client's name. I have no idea why these suggested edits were accepted this time, as I had made MANY suggestions in the past, most of which were ignored. But I DO appreciate your suggestions!

 

[JS Girard]

Hey @Tony Wang and @Stefan Somborac - I apologize for the late reply. I ended up suggesting an edit that the business had re-opened. Then, I was able to suggest an edit to remove my client's name. I have no idea why these suggested edits were accepted this time, as I had made MANY suggestions in the past, most of which were ignored. But I DO appreciate your suggestions!

As I said before, I'm 99% sure that closed listings never accept any suggestions other than to reopen them. It's a sensible baseline when you think about it: why would they? The business is already marked as closed!

Of course if you don't know about that aspect, you end up in situations like yours.