Dirty Behavior from competitor?

[Tech bud]

I have a competitor that Is repeatedly clicking or calling my google ad to purposely ad up my charges.

How would you all go about handling this?

 

[16bwhitt]

How do you know it's your competitor?

 

[Tech bud]

Because when I answer they always say they are looking for {insert competitor name}, then hang up. At first I thought it was a mistake, but if I look at my add, my name and number is right

 

[phaZed]

Do they have any ads? Hehe. I would write a bot to click on theirs 5x as much as they can click on mine.

Seriously though, I don't believe there is much to do but pull your ad to stop the charges.

 

[allanc]

I have a competitor that Is repeatedly clicking or calling my google ad to purposely ad up my charges.

How would you all go about handling this?

Doesn't Google itself have the technology to recognize this?

 

[Tech bud]

I emailed Googled, I'm waiting for a reply.

I did check if they have an ad up, but no dice haha

 

[nlinecomputers]

https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2015/08/17/click-fraud

 

[Porthos]

I had a competitor about a mile down the road, You could not find them on the net very easily and were both on the same main street. Needless to say I recived ALOT of calls asking if I was them. People would search for computer repair on Nacogdoches Rd and I was the only result.

Luckily they only lasted a year thanks to several of thier clients reporting them to MS for piracy of Windows and Office.

 

[nerd2u]

How often is repeatedly? Like 100 x a day or 5 x a month?

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

 

[frase]

Haha I have one here, just opened a store. He bagged some other tech running one of those kiosks in a review locally. Gave him one star because he is a one man business and complained about his service.

So I tracked the Business owner whom opened a new store, he gave his own business a 5 star rating lmao and stated "Amazing service, highly recommended".

I am awaiting my review so I can hammer him muhahah.

 

[sapphirescales]

I'm sorry guys, but writing a review for a business whose service you didn't actually use is immoral. Even going out and writing a positive review for your competitor is wrong unless you've used their service. I know of a few businesses that I worked with that got hammered on Yelp for exchanging reviews with other business owners when they didn't actually use each other's services. Although the thought is nice, reviews are for the benefit of people looking for services, NOT for the benefit of the businesses themselves.

As for clicking on competitors ads, I admit that I've done this - not to cost them money, but so I could check out their landing pages. I'm very glad that Google is using transparent URL's now because now I can just hover my mouse over the link and see the URL so I can type it in manually. That way it doesn't cost my competitors any money for me to check out their landing page.

 

[goldmercury]

You can block up to 10 IPs on Google ads - this is worth a try - also schedule the ads when you can answer the phone not 24/7.

Final thing is to exclude thier geo location from your campaign. (0.5 miles radius exclusion from their address)

 

[Tech bud]

I got in touch with Google. They said that it could have been that the customers might have saved the number in their phone as their number. But I got the new routed number that was for Madison Computer works, so they are calling thinking they are calling them, but they don't have the right number.

 

[nlinecomputers]

I got in touch with Google. They said that it could have been that the customers might have saved the number in their phone as their number. But I got the new routed number that was for Madison Computer works, so they are calling thinking they are calling them, but they don't have the right number.

I am having trouble following this?

Did you purchase someone else's phone number? I assume that this Madison Computer Works is a defunct business? Someone is still running ads for this business even though it is closed?

 

[Tech bud]

I am having trouble following this?

Did you purchase someone else's phone number? I assume that this Madison Computer Works is a defunct business? Someone is still running ads for this business even though it is closed?

From the sounds of it: Google gives you a number that routes through their system so they can track if you got a call or not. They called for his service at some time and saved the number to their phone.

So I have the new tracking number that they had at one point, so there calling them again, but I'm receiving the calls. Which doesn't sound good for him as a business?

 

[nlinecomputers]

From the sounds of it: Google gives you a number that routes through their system so they can track if you got a call or not. They called for his service at some time and saved the number to their phone.

So I have the new tracking number that they had at one point, so there calling them again, but I'm receiving the calls. Which doesn't sound good for him as a business?

So in other words, through no fault of your own, YOU are the one playing dirty because you "HIJACKED" the guy's phone number? #smh

 

[Tech bud]

So in other words, through no fault of your own, YOU are the one playing dirty because you "HIJACKED" the guy's phone number? #smh

Ya, I'm actually arguing with them, as it's not my fault, I don't want leads that just ask for him and then hang up.

I swear I need to start an ad business, can get paid for nothing all the time.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Ya, I'm actually arguing with them, as it's not my fault, I don't want leads that just ask for him and then hang up.

I swear I need to start an ad business, can get paid for nothing all the time.

I hope you can reach out to your competitor and google and get this fixed. This is a clusterfluck all around.

 

[nlinecomputers]

I didn't know that google substituted their own number. That is dumb because plenty of people would save the number and lots of business might decide that the ad wasn't working as well and give up the number. Which means if you give up the number you both will be in the same boat.

 

[labtech]

Click fraud is at an all time high, human, bots, etc.
Google does NOT help much, if at all. They don't care about you as a customer, even if you pay 5 figures + per month.
I tried with proof, video recordings, stats, patterns and so on - talking to the walls.
Google reps will literally tell you that "their team of specialists have investigated and no apparent fraudulent activity has been found"; if you ask for a report of any kind for accountability or just to be educated, they will tell you "we cannot provide such documentation as the investigation is internal only".
Google's customer service has been in India for the past 2 years. It is absolutely horrible in trying to get anything corrected.

I do recommend the IP blocking option, though.