Consumers routinely turn to Google Maps when they are looking for a locksmith, an urgent care facility, home repair services, or other local businesses. However, what they find may be fraud. Experts say that hundreds of thousands of false listings appear on Google Maps each month, adding up to about 11 million falsely listed businesses on a typical day. More than an inconvenience, many of these listings lead consumers to fraudulent or non-existent businesses. Customers may be cheated by service providers giving shoddy service at inflated prices. Or they may drive around searching for a business that doesn’t even exist. Many of them hijack the listings of legitimate businesses and divert customers to their scam businesses. Meanwhile, ads on Google Maps represent a significant source of revenue for the search giant.
Unfortunately, there is no simple way to determine which listings are fake. However, if you see some combination of red flags you should be aware that the so-called “business” may not be what it appears to be.
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- Watch out for business names with keywords like “best” or “dependable” or “emergency.”
Those are popular search terms, and spammers know that business names with those keywords have a better chance of showing up high in the search results. That’s not to say legitimate businesses don’t sometimes use those words in their names, but give keyword-heavy listings some extra scrutiny.
Google recommends checking to see if the listing has a website. Click to see that the link isn’t broken or giving you a malware warning and the site appears to be legitimate.
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- Do a search for the address.
If you do a search for the address in the listing, does the same business appear? (Pro tip: Try doing the search in a search engine other than Google.) If you tap the Street View icon, can you clearly see evidence of the company at that location, such as a sign? Or is it a residential street with no business in sight?
Just because there’s a dot on the map doesn’t mean the business is located anywhere near there. It is possible that a legitimate business doesn’t see customers at an office, and so doesn’t list an address, even though they appear on a map in the search results, but it is a red flag.
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- Check the phone number.
Calling the number on a suspicious listing can tell you a lot. Businesses that have nothing to hide won’t mind answering questions about whether they have a physical office and where it’s located. If you reach a legitimate lead-generation firm they may offer to connect you to someone who can help.
What matters is to get the name of the business that is being represented so you can find out if their services and pricing are what you expect. Before making an appointment or a purchase, try to verify the existence of the company in other ways, such as through its own independent website, or a listing on Yelp or some other known search tool.
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- Don’t automatically trust all reviews.
Reviews can be helpful, but we all know that many online reviews are fake. If there are multiple reviews all published around the same time, they may be fakes. Also watch for five-star ratings with vague praise such as “Excellent service!” “Highly recommended!” “Definitely the best!”
Click on the user profile for the person who posted the review to see what other reviews that person has left. If “Bob Smith” has left many short, vague reviews on businesses in multiple cities, odds are that he is a spammer, not a jet-setter.
