From scams that range from simple false businesses to legitimate accounts that have been pirate or diverted. This Wednesday, March 19, Google announced to file a complaint against Crooks behind a vast fraud. As CBS is related, the company has discovered more than 10,000 false records on Google Maps.
It all started when a Texan company pointed out that an unauthorized locksmith presented it in its mapping application. After this accusation, Google conducted an investigation and discovered thousands of fraudulent inscriptions.
False ads and false reviews
According to the complaint, a man who works on a larger network has created and sold false commercial profiles on Google Maps. Several of these scams focused on the services that people need in urgent or stressful situations, such as locks or towing companies.
As Halimah Delaine Prado, Google’s lawyer, explained in CBS, the Crooks used several tactics. Among them is the bait and exchange. Specifically, a person looking for a local service falls to a false ad instead of an authorized professional. In other cases, Internet users call a real business, but their number is intercepted and sent to a service that transmits the call to criminals.
The scammers have not only entered fake companies in Google Maps. They have also sold a false positive opinion to companies to eliminate real negative opinions. “Consumers use opinions under these ads to make decisions about the service that will be used or not to use,” said Halimah Delaine Prado. “A false profile and a false opinion undermine the trust we have in this ecosystem,” he added.
Given these scams, the lawyer recommends ensuring that a company is legitimate in case of doubt, verifying that the phone number of this corresponds well to the one advertised, for example. It also advises users to be cautious if a company requests more information from the necessary and that is vigilant if you request to pay the services in an unconventional way, such as a bank transfer.
Source: BFM TV
