Google Business Listing Scam: Don’t Fall for the Urgent Voicemail

If you got a voicemail recently that goes something like this:

“Hi, this is James from the business help center. We're having a pretty serious issue with your Google business listing…”

Then congratulations—you’ve just been targeted by one of the most common scams hitting small business owners today. Spoofed calls pretending to be from Google (or “the Google Maps team”) are nothing new, but they’re getting slicker, pushier, and a lot more robotic.

Let’s break it down:

  • Caller pretends to be from Google’s business support. Spoiler: Google doesn’t cold call like this. They’ll email you through your verified business account.
  • They say it’s urgent, often giving you a deadline—like “call before 5PM” or “fix this before the end of the day.” This creates panic and bypasses your skepticism.
  • They repeat a number several times, hoping you’ll write it down and call without thinking it through. In this case: (877) 694-2605. Do NOT call it.
  • The caller ID is spoofed—it showed “MEDISHARE” and a different local number (321-473-1947). This is just a masking tactic to look legit.

What you should do instead:

  1. Do not call the number back. These scammers often try to sell you “listing management” services that don’t exist, or worse, harvest your personal/business info.
  2. Report the number to the FCC at reportfraud.ftc.gov.
  3. Check your actual listing by logging into business.google.com.
  4. Mark the voicemail as spam on your phone app.

A Real Business Help Center Won’t Call Like This

Let’s be clear—there is no “Business Help Center” at Google that’s making unsolicited phone calls. If something were actually wrong with your listing, you’d receive a notification inside your Google Business Profile or an email to your account admin—not a shady robocall that sounds like it was scripted in a boiler room in 2007.

We’ve covered this kind of scam before—and unfortunately, it’s only evolving.

Need help securing your online business presence? Contact me directly and I’ll run a real Google Business Profile check (for free) and lock down your listing properly.

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