The google listing scams

TormentingTelemarketers,

First let me thank you for your own hard work with these particular telemarketers. I've silently appreciated your efforts even when I was just an unregistered user.

As far as I know, eGumball hasn't called our office in 2017 after calling us at least five times (possibly more) in 2016 based on your posts, research and my own logging of suspicious calls. When I first started to engage the live operators, I originally started out asking, "Is this eGumball?" because of the posts here and how prevalent they seemed to be with this type of call.

Some of the operators I've spoken with claim that only the boss could make do not call requests. Somehow, though, those companies stopped calling shortly after my making that request. Of course, I'm not sure if my reports to Google play any role in that. But, I'd like to believe so--especially when the same entity calls multiple times from the same number and I report each call.

What piques my curiosity most is the entity or entities behind these calls. So far, each operator I've spoken with has given me a different business name. Are there really that many SEO companies in the market? Or, is there a single company (or small number of companies) using multiple entity names to make it look like several unrelated companies place these calls?

Yes, there's lots of SEO companies out there. In my area alone there's a very active SEO/SEM group that regularly has dozens of attendees monthly, along with notable companies/speakers. I'd say most of those are legitimate companies that can help you do better in Google search and general on-line presence, and never claim they will get you on the 1st page of (organic) search results.

However, it seems that the ones that telemarket are hit and miss (mostly miss). From what I've seen, these companies don't help you address issues to boost your ranking, but try to take complete control of your presence with little impact, or create an alternate presence that supersedes your own - and then links to you. And once you stop paying them, everything you've paid for vanishes. And never give another company primary ownership of your Google Business listing. Let them have Manager access, but if they want more - RUN. Otherwise, they can take control away from you.

As for EGumball, I didn't complain about them to Google as long as they called saying they were with "Map Support". I complained to Google about them multiple times once they started robocalling as "Google Map Support", I think at least once linking to my recording of the call (single party State, yea!). I don't know if that's helped curtail their behavior, but maybe so. I haven't heard from them for a while, but they are still out there.

Thanks, again, for your informative reply that addressed my curiosity.

The Google/local map calls hit us really hard last summer and ranged from July all the way through November. At one point, the calls came at nearly the same time each day. This made it easy to identify the calls as telemarketing robocalls before I'd even check the caller ID display. The map calls abruptly stopped here once I finally decided to speak to an operator to ask for the calls to stop. Since then, we've only had one such call with a map-related caller name or message; that came in January of this year.

As you say, it's possible eGumball is still active. Perhaps they try to avoid complainers such as ourselves, even if it's nothing more than listwashing.

Here's the most recent reference on 800notes.com that I found, Oct 2017: https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-910-855-0221, so I guess we are off their lists, at least temporarily. But still at it.

Constantly calling.  Automated system advising that our demo's need to be updated with google.  Most of the time no one is on the other end.  It's such an interruption to the work day.

I've asked that they stop but the calls keep coming

Do you honestly expect scammers to respect your wishes? Just block and ignore their call.s

I don't expect compliance but making the demand raises the value of TCPA claims. I think the above discussion among many others points out why the block-ignore response can be like trying to patch a cracking dam with a roll of duct tape.

Quote:

the block-ignore response can be like trying to patch a cracking dam with a roll of duct tape.

Its more like using an umbrella to stop some of the water that sprays out from the  dam's cracks, from reaching you.

With a lot of these Google listing scams - it's not just TCPA claims. There are trademark claims at issue here as well. It might not be worth it / viable for me as a business to go after them, but we might have a very big friend on our side here: Google.  If we document these, and send enough of them to Google, they have shown that they do take these issues seriously.

They have already gone after one. Let's make sure they have sufficient evidence to take down more.

Lora, there's probably no way to stop these calls on a permanent basis, but there are some things you can consider doing depending on your personal situation:

• Report the calls on this site under the appropriate phone number. The more you can share about the call and the caller, the better it will be for anyone else looking up the number.
• For robocalls that mention Google or any of its trademarks, report the call to Google at this link specifically intended for complaints about these specific calls.
• If blocking calls is an option, invest in a call blocker or use tools that allow blocking on your mobile phone--whether built into the phone or a separate app. The ability to block entire exchanges or entire area codes is a huge plus.
• Avoid choosing an automated option to be removed (press 1, 2, etc.). If you want to do anything other than hang up or ignore the call, speak to a live operator and make it clear you want that company to stop calling. With so many SEO companies out there, though, one may have to do this many times. You may also want to keep a record of what companies you've asked to stop calling.

Spamming the boards with repeat msgs will get you banned...