Scammers are changing the contact details for banks on Google Maps • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by optimiz3 » Sun, Nov 25, 2018, 9:51 PM UTC

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…

Does Google pay you to moderate? What is the user incentive to commit hours of time to a 3rd party commercial enterprise?

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

#72

Post by pbhjpbhj » Sun, Nov 25, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

mattnewton wrote: post #20

joshstrange wrote: post #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.

Or drop people: “Scammers are changing the contact info for banks on Google Maps to defraud”

The the is supefluous too: "Scammers changing contact details of banks on Google Maps [to defraud]". But the "defraud" coming at the end and not being just "fraud" is poor in English. However, "scammers" are pretty much synonymous with "fraudsters", so the "to defraud" is probably superfluous too.

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

#73

Post by darpa_escapee » Sun, Nov 25, 2018, 9:55 PM UTC

optimiz3 wrote: post #71

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…

Does Google pay you to moderate? What is the user incentive to commit hours of time to a 3rd party commercial enterprise?

No, Google doesn't pay you when you do work for them as a "Local Guide".

That means that there is little incentive to stop people who are paid by entities that have vested interest in manipulating Google Maps information.

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

#74

Post by bpicolo » Sun, Nov 25, 2018, 10:04 PM UTC

Angostura wrote: post #55

bpicolo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, if someone claims your business, it's extremely difficult to undo. My mother has this issue with her 1 person LLC - some random person claimed it, and the reclaiming flow was busted last I checked

When I did this a long time ago, I received a postcard to the address on the website, contain a PIN code that I needed to input on line. Don't they do that any more?

Not sure, the issue I hit was that it was legitimately broken when I tried. 500 responses or some such from an API call

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

#75

Post by superflyguy » Sun, Nov 25, 2018, 10:41 PM UTC

optimiz3 wrote: post #71

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…

Does Google pay you to moderate? What is the user incentive to commit hours of time to a 3rd party commercial enterprise?

Stack overflow is pretty popular. Although their recent attempt to "be nice to new users" (which wasn't necessary before, and coincides with the quality of answers rapidly approaching that of Quota) suggests that this won't last forever.

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

#76

Post by tgb » Sun, Nov 25, 2018, 10:42 PM UTC

So how will this work with the new Google Duplex ai assistant auto calling a scammer for you? Yikes.

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

#77

Post by WheelsAtLarge » Sun, Nov 25, 2018, 10:54 PM UTC

I got burned by a similar scam with information changes in google. I was looking for a specific restaurant in google and used the given address to get there. When I got there I found out it was a different restaurant. I asked about the other restaurant and they told me the other restaurant had gone out of business. A complete lie.

I'm sure they hired a company to promote them and they used this trick to increase their customer base.

Never trust the company info google gives you without double checking. It's very easy for anyone to change the business info without proof of ownership.

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

#78

Post by twblalock » Sun, Nov 25, 2018, 10:58 PM UTC

Eridrus wrote: post #12

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…

Google already let's people claim their maps listing via Google My Business. I would be shocked if they couldn't lock edits, or at the very least review them. I hope Google uses their Duplex tech to review phone number changes though, should be easy to call the existing phone number a few times.

Claiming your listing does not let you lock it in the sense you are thinking of. It's also not very difficult to claim a listing that was already claimed by somebody else -- they will get an email asking them to challenge your claim, and if they don't respond you can take over the listing. That's how it worked a year ago, which is the last time I used it.

You can review edits in Google My Business. But Google will sometimes import a bunch of data from a data broker or some other source and bulk update your listings, which you then need to go in and edit again.

Google My Business is also very, very strict about rejecting addresses it does not think are real, which is a bit of a problem for businesses on newly constructed roads, or roads that were recently renamed. If their address normalizer rejects it, you just can't use it.

When you have a problem, Google's customer service is really, really bad.

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

#79

Post by dawnerd » Sun, Nov 25, 2018, 11:00 PM UTC

optimiz3 wrote: post #71

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…

Does Google pay you to moderate? What is the user incentive to commit hours of time to a 3rd party commercial enterprise?

No, it's part of the local guides program they run. They'll show you pending edits and you just approve or decline. I don't spent too much time on it, only when I notice and am in the app.

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

#80

Post by qrbLPHiKpiux » Sun, Nov 25, 2018, 11:00 PM UTC

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #77

I got burned by a similar scam with information changes in google. I was looking for a specific restaurant in google and used the given address to get there. When I got there I found out it was a different restaurant. I asked about the other restaurant and they told me the other restaurant had gone out of business. A complete lie. I'm sure they hired a company to promote them and they used this trick to increase thei…

I don’t initially trust anything on he internet without second source verification. The internet is just one big scam pot today and at the same time, since using it before wide spread public use, I’m fascinated with watching it evolve, devolve since then.