Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps
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Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps
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Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps
#2A local taxi company near me was relisted on Google maps using a pay-per-minute redirect service. The scammers get paid, and the customer is non the wiser until they get their bill.
I was charged about £5 for a 30 second call.
Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps
#3A local taxi company near me was relisted on Google maps using a pay-per-minute redirect service. The scammers get paid, and the customer is non the wiser until they get their bill. I was charged about £5 for a 30 second call.
Were you able to dispute this charge?
Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps
#4A local taxi company near me was relisted on Google maps using a pay-per-minute redirect service. The scammers get paid, and the customer is non the wiser until they get their bill. I was charged about £5 for a 30 second call.
What would be a legitimate use case for redirect services?
Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps
#5A couple of years ago, I needed to find a limo service for an old family friend, for a memorial service. It'd been some years, but I knew of and used to use one of the top two limo services in my metropolitan area. (In my area, in a perverse historical twist, a shared limo ride to the airport was substantially cheaper than a cab ride, as well as pretty much guaranteed timely as well as more comfortable.)
I'd heard that this was one business area where fly by night companies, and outright scammers, had been stuffing and, where possible, gaming search engine results -- meaning, given their market dominance, Google results.
I searched for the company -- mind you, a relatively large livery service with a diverse and well-heeled customer base, sure to still be in existence -- and sure enough, the search results were full of hits purporting to be them or part of them, or just playing on minor variations of their name. If nothing else, the phone numbers didn't look right to me as compared to my vague memory, formed back when people still dialed numbers.
Anyway, eventually I pulled out an old, physical yellow pages I'd been hoarding, looked them up in that, and called. They had changed that particular number, although not to something looking like one of the scam results. They had numbers from back when people faced in-state toll charges on phone calls, and since they covered an entire large metropolitan area, they had at that time registered numbers in several local exchanges, to make customer calls to them a local call (just pick the number having a local or non-toll exchange).
They still had the number from the yellow pages, though, assigned to an internal extension, and the person who answered took time out of their day to provide first rate customer service for the family friend.
The first rate service was still there. However, finding it through a Google search was a risky venture.
I'm not at all surprised that Maps contents is being exploited and gamed. I guess I'll hold on to that old yellow pages book a bit longer.
Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps
#6I do a lot of Google Maps moderation and there’s a ton of bad changes being attempted every day. Honestly I’m amazed Google doesn’t bother to vet anyone really. Becoming a local guide is easy and not that difficult for a spam group to create enough fake accounts to get things pushed through. Just last night I caught the local Target that was reclassified as a “prison”.
What Google needs to do is lock information for verified businesses or businesses they’re directly scraping from the Corp location pages.
Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps
#7@dang
I know "Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps to defraud people" is 4 characters too long but maybe "Scammers changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps to defraud people" is better than what it currently is? "changing the contact" alone doesn't make a lot of sense.
Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps
#8I do a lot of Google Maps moderation and there’s a ton of bad changes being attempted every day. Honestly I’m amazed Google doesn’t bother to vet anyone really. Becoming a local guide is easy and not that difficult for a spam group to create enough fake accounts to get things pushed through. Just last night I caught the local Target that was reclassified as a “prison”. What Google needs to do is lock information for…
In turn, I'm amazed that people put effort into databases that are owned by companies. Wouldn't it be much more fulfilling to do the same work for an open database, such as open street maps?
Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps
#9A local taxi company near me was relisted on Google maps using a pay-per-minute redirect service. The scammers get paid, and the customer is non the wiser until they get their bill. I was charged about £5 for a 30 second call.
Were you able to dispute this charge?
I told my phone company, they wouldn't refund.
I also reported the number to the communications ombudsman .. haven't heard anything since unfortunately.
Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps
#10A local taxi company near me was relisted on Google maps using a pay-per-minute redirect service. The scammers get paid, and the customer is non the wiser until they get their bill. I was charged about £5 for a 30 second call.
I didn't know they even had pay-per-minute services anymore. Does Twilio allow someone to set one up?