A New Google Maps Scam Can Hijack Your Calls Without Changing Your Phone Number

How the scam works

Google Business Profiles allow anyone — including the general public — to contribute photos to a business listing. This is normally a good thing. Customer photos of your storefront, your work, and your team build trust and help your profile rank. But the same openness that makes profiles useful also makes them exploitable.

In the scam documented this week, bad actors are uploading AI-generated images — fake storefront signs, fake vehicle wraps, fake banners — that prominently display a phone number the scammer controls. To a customer scrolling your profile, the image looks legitimate. They see a phone number on what appears to be your signage or your truck, and they call it. The call goes to the scammer, not to you.

The risk is amplified by how Google surfaces photos. Google may feature a contributor-uploaded image prominently on your profile — sometimes in a position that looks like a cover photo. That means the fake number can appear before a customer ever scrolls down to your real, verified phone number in the profile fields.

Search Engine Roundtable documented a real example on September 10, 2026 showing the same suspicious phone number appearing in uploaded images across multiple completely unrelated Business Profiles — a flooring store, a patio cover company, a roofing supplier, and a drywall repair business. One reported contributor had uploaded similar images to more than 150 unrelated businesses. Here's the example they published:

Notice the pattern: four different industries, four different cities, one phone number. That's the signature of this scam.

Why service businesses are especially vulnerable

Any local business can be targeted, but service businesses that depend on urgent, phone-driven leads are hit the hardest. Roofing companies, HVAC contractors, plumbers, electricians, locksmiths, and restoration companies all fit this profile: when a customer needs you, they usually need you now, and they call the first credible number they see.

That's precisely the customer behavior this scam exploits. A homeowner with a leaking roof isn't carefully comparing your official profile phone number against the number printed on a truck photo. They're tapping the first number in front of them.

The business impact is also invisible by default. Your rankings don't change. Your profile fields don't change. Your dashboard shows nothing wrong. The only symptom is a slow, silent leak of calls — and most owners would never connect a quiet week to a fraudulent photo on their own listing.

It's worth noting that this is credible third-party reporting, not a Google-confirmed platform change, and the overall scale is still unknown. But with documented examples across 150+ unrelated businesses, it's worth acting on regardless of how widespread it turns out to be.

How to check your profile right now

The good news is that checking takes only a few minutes. Because this scam lives on the public-facing side of your profile, you don't even need to log in to spot it.

1. View your profile as a customer. Open an incognito or private browser window and search your business name on Google, or find your business directly in Google Maps.
2. Look at the main photo area first. Check whatever image Google is displaying most prominently — including anything that looks like a cover photo. If there's a phone number visible in the image, verify it's actually yours.
3. Open your full photo gallery. On Google Maps, tap through to all photos on your profile. Look specifically at photos you did not upload — these are usually labeled as customer or visitor photos.
4. Scan for phone numbers, URLs, and QR codes. Any image containing contact information you didn't put there is a red flag, especially if the same number appears on an image for a business in a different industry or city.
5. Check the contributor. Tap the photo to see who uploaded it. If that contributor's profile shows uploads across dozens of unrelated businesses, you're almost certainly looking at a coordinated campaign.

This is the same "look at your profile the way customers do" habit we recommend for the first things customers notice on a Google profile — it's just no longer optional.

What to do if you find a fraudulent image

If you spot a suspicious image on your profile, don't panic — but do act, and act in the right order.

1. Document everything first. Save screenshots of the image as it appears on your profile, and capture the contributor's profile page that uploaded it. If the image or account disappears later, you'll still have a record.
2. Report the image to Google. On Google Maps, open the photo, tap the menu, and use the report option to flag it as inappropriate. Follow Google's official removal instructions here: Report inappropriate photos or videos on your Business Profile.
3. Report the contributor, too. The image is the symptom; the account is the source. Reporting the contributor's profile helps Google connect the pattern across the dozens or hundreds of businesses they've targeted.
4. Report it once — not repeatedly. Google advises against submitting repeated reports for the same image, because duplicates can actually delay the review. One clean, well-documented report is better than five.
5. Keep monitoring. The review process can take several business days. Check back on the profile until the image is gone, and note the date so you can escalate if it stalls.

One more thing worth saying clearly: do not try to counter the scam by uploading your own image with your phone number in giant text. Heavy text overlays make your profile look promotional and untrustworthy to real customers, and Google's own algorithms prefer clean, authentic photography. Win the photo section with real images of your work — not by out-shouting the scammer.

Build public-side photo checks into your routine

This scam is a good reminder that your Google Business Profile has two sides: the dashboard you manage, and the public listing your customers actually see. Most owners only ever check the dashboard. Fraudulent contributor photos, wrong map pins, and other common profile problems all live on the public side.

Add two items to whatever recurring profile check you (or your team) already do: review the publicly displayed cover or featured image, and scan customer-uploaded photos for anything containing contact information. It takes a few minutes and it's the only reliable way to catch this class of problem early.

If you want a deeper maintenance cadence, we cover the full routine in how often you should update your profile and the complete sweep in the ultimate GBP optimization checklist.

How Nearby Calls handles this

This is the same category of threat as the review reply dashboard bug from July — a problem that's invisible from inside the dashboard and only visible from the customer-facing side. Monitoring the public side of a profile is exactly what most busy owners never get around to, and exactly what we do as part of monitoring thousands of profiles.

If you'd rather have someone watching your photos, reviews, categories, and public listing for you — and catching problems like this before they cost you calls — we can help.

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