New fake LSA pages with hundreds and thousands of unrelated reviews are killing legit LSA businesses in our area

[Cuoreimpavido]

Hi. Around 2 months ago, 3-4 fake LSA pages popped in our area. They have anywhere between 300-4000 reviews. There are no businesses with these names in our state. No google maps for them. And the reviews are connected to parks and unrelated businesses.

I tried to report them a few weeks ago with this form: Report Misconduct or Abuse - Local Services Help
And after a few days I received an email that my concerns are being checked by their team but they can’t share information about it. But unfortunately nothing happened with that. The LSA pages are still there and still ranking like a beast all over the state. Basically pushing down every single legit business in every town and city in the state (I called my competitors owners, all confirmed to be hit by them).

LSA phone support can’t help. They directed me to that same contact form.

Any ideas what to do?

 

[JoyHawkins]

@mblumenthal has been tracking a similar issue here -

Mike any solutions for the one you're tracking yet?

 

[mblumenthal]

Can you share more details with me? If no here, email me mblumenthal@nearmedia.co

Here are more details about what I have been seeing here: LSA Spam Scam - It's Deja Vu All Over Again

 

[firestar786]

Thats very odd because, LSA phone support did help me.
Maybe its diferent as im in the UK.
I can help you, if you would like to message me.
Many thanks.

 

[mblumenthal]

Firestar

Would you be willing to email me? I am looking for more details. Clearly the problem and possibly the scam are world wide. At least at the ones I am looking at there is a bait and switch scheme going on

It is possible that they helped in the UK because there are stricter business licensing laws than the state Coureimoavideo is in.

 

[GoLocal]

Does it actually affect sales or traffic?

 

[Cuoreimpavido]

Does it actually affect sales or traffic?

Big time. In my area there are 3 fake LSA pages that ranks very well. I can see the statistics graph on my LSA page went down drastically since these fake LSA pages appeared.

When I look up LSA results in my main towns, my LSA page ranks just below the fake ones.

They of course affects many other businesses too, because they rank highly in other areas in my state, pushing down other legit businesses that used to appear 1-2 position in their area.

 

[GoLocal]

Right, for rankings. But sales? If top ranking is pure spam it doesn't typically affect local service sales, i.e. your need for a dentist or a lawyer won't change. They can't trick people out of visiting a real dentist. I could be misunderstanding, will be interesting to follow. Cheers.

 

[Cuoreimpavido]

Right, for rankings. But sales? If top ranking is pure spam it doesn't typically affect local service sales, i.e. your need for a dentist or a lawyer won't change. They can't trick people out of visiting a real dentist. I could be misunderstanding, will be interesting to follow. Cheers.

Yes it affects sales. First, we can't visit enough customers if the phone barely rings. We used to have around 40% visits per leads, to reach the same amount of visits - the phone needs to ring.

Second, I don't think customers understand these fake LSA pages are fake. I'm believe they're some kind of lead generation (selling these leads to small uncertified technicians in our area), at the end the customer will receive a service, it will just be from an unprofessional company that didn't rank organically (which from my experience are usually uncertified, using cheap equipment, don't do a very thorough work, and upselling necessarily to maximize profit) - so it also hurt customers at the end.

 

[GoLocal]

Odd that you didn't get approached. When someone displaces a rankee with a referral entity usually the first thing they do is offer the poached leads to the displaced rankees. Why sell it to someone lesser if they're willing to pay a premium? BIzarre that you were not offered a chance to buy those leads. Keep us posted, this is interesting.

 

[Cuoreimpavido]

Odd that you didn't get approached. When someone displaces a rankee with a referral entity usually the first thing they do is offer the poached leads to the displaced rankees. Why sell it to someone lesser if they're willing to pay a premium? BIzarre that you were not offered a chance to buy those leads. Keep us posted, this is interesting.

Well to be honest even if they did, I don't think they will get past our phone rep with any sale offer, she know not to bother us with stuff like that (thanks, Yelp!).
Also, I'm subscribed to a few home improvement owner groups on Facebook and WhatsApp, and I did see offers for LSA pages with thousands of reviews from day one for like $4000-6000.

 

[GoLocal]

Interesting perspective. If I owned a company and you gave me two choices for January 2024: 1) Lose 100 leads completely. 2) Purchase 100 leads. I would always go with 2. YMMV. I wish you luck with this, sounds horrible.

 

[Cuoreimpavido]

Interesting perspective. If I owned a company and you gave me two choices for January 2024: 1) Lose 100 leads completely. 2) Purchase 100 leads. I would always go with 2. YMMV. I wish you luck with this, sounds horrible.

well yeah if you offer it us today our answer will be different, but until mid of November everything went smoothly for us. We filled our schedule with leads from Google, didn't need to pay to anyone else for it.

 

[GoLocal]

Makes perfect sense. Super curious about what this is and who is behind it.

 

[system32s]

We have new LSA accounts in the area, 4-5, They're all going to the same call center. All these profiles getting 10-15 reviews every day, Fake reviews posting non stop. Reported to Google multiple times but they don't care. It kills local businesses. Only scam/spam companies are advertising on LSA in my area. All legit one's opted out.

 

[GoLocal]

If legits are opting out change will come. It's just the wait...

 

[system32s]

If legits are opting out change will come. It's just the wait...

I hope so, Basically what i found out is. Looks like there is a team, They're doing profile setup, they pass Advanced Verification, Adding tons of reviews and selling ready to go profiles from anywhere 3-20K. New owners are scamming, ripping off customers so they can make money back asap and start making profit. lead price jumped from $14 to $45-50

 

[GoLocal]

Holy snap! That's crazy.

Lead prices seem about the same on KW so that's odd. I actually just created a niche directory site this week for pest control because I noticed a couple easy spots and their PPC is insane. Nothing has changed in the forecast, etc.

 

[Cuoreimpavido]

In my case LSA lead price increased by 20% since the fake LSA pages appeared in my area.
The main problem is they're ranked in position 1 and 2 very often, so it doesn't matter what the lead price is, legit businesses just don't get much leads anymore.

Like System32s said, these fake businesses are flooded with reviews, starting with hundreds/thousands from day one, and adding 10+ a day.

They look super legit to potential customers, I'm not sure that these customers even realize they clicked on a fake LSA listing even after the job is done. They just get horrible service and prices and think all local businesses are horrible without knowing what just happened.

 

[GoLocal]

When did it start?