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Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps

blog.abhijittomar.com

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Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps

#41

Post by tunap »

dawnerd wrote: post #6

I 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…

I am curious what the 3rd party bounty/revenue model is & if fixing/locking edits to verified owners would inversely affect G's & 3rds revenues. I ask b/c every licensed biz owner I know who have not utilized Goog's biz profile service(?) get dozens of calls a week to "activate your Google account NOW!". Quite off-putting & a very significant waste of their(the owners') time deflecting the onslaught.

Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps

#42

Post by lozenge »

brianbreslin wrote: post #10
lwhi wrote: post #2

A 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?

As long as the phone companies get paid for them, they'll keep letting you dial them.

Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps

#43

Post by jakelazaroff »

phkahler wrote: post #40
specialp wrote: post #35

If Google is going to have customers remain on their site for search information they have the duty to ensure it is accurate. More and more searches are now given a placard that is either community generated or scraped whether it be maps or the main search. A search that used to feature a link to the bank's "Contact Us" page is now being taken by Google with the link being buried further down between more ads. I get…

Most people want to remain anonymous on the internet or have disposable IDs and profiles. And yet they expect Google to somehow ensure that people are who they say they are. This is a hard problem and it won't be solved as long as people want it both ways.

It's not that people don't want to ever be identified, it's that they don't want to constantly be identified and tracked with no way to opt out.

This is also a false dichotomy: Google not tracking us online would not prevent it from verifying our true identities with regard to e.g. editing maps information.

Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps

#44

Post by edent »

tommyanthony wrote: post #15
lwhi wrote: post #2

A 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.

Hi, I work on maps spam. I was wondering if you could dig up a link to the maps business, and include a rough idea of when this occurred. Thanks!

I've tried to report this map spam before - details at https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2018/04/hundreds-of-thousands-of-sp...

Happy to be contacted if you'd like more information.

Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps

#45

Post by x0054 »

lwhi wrote: post #2

A 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 thought those were restricted to specific area codes. I think the phone company should be liable in scams like this. Also, there should be a way to block all pay-per-min calls on your phone. This is one of those areas government needs to regulate.

Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps

#46

Post by alistairSH »

hadrien01 wrote: post #30
scarejunba wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDPR principle d if the business is a person? (I don't actually know)

How can a business be a person?

When the court says it is... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood

https://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-...

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/corpora...

Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps

#47

Post by [deleted] »

nordsieck wrote: post #16
amelius wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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? There are tons of open source developers who contribute to code bases that require copyright assignment. They probably do it for the same reasons: * It's personally useful * It's useful to a lot of people * It's (comparatively)…

[deleted]

Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps

#48

Post by hadrien01 »

alistairSH wrote: post #46
hadrien01 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can a business be a person?

When the court says it is... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood https://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-... https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/corpora...

The parent was talking about GDPR, so presumably Europe.

Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps

#49

Post by askvictor »

olivermarks wrote: post #26

I check phone numbers with yellowpages.com if I'm unsure, we've come full circle...

How do you know this is legit? Does the yellow pages verify every listing? If a company neglects to register a yellow pages slot, how hard is it for someone else to register it? Genuine questions (and I'd guess it changes by country); Google does a fair bit of effort to get business owner to claim their property on Google (again, probably changes by country); if they don't do so, then how different is it to someone neglecting to put their yellow pages entry in?

Re: Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps

#50

Post by hrydgard »

amelius wrote: post #8
dawnerd wrote: post #6

I 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?

I use the Google Maps GPS to navigate, and have contributed by moving a couple of locations that had misleading coordinates (for example, out in a field instead of pointing to the parking log). Purely for my own convenience next time I'm navigating to these place.
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