Google Hotel Listings Plagued with Fake WhatsApp Numbers & Wrongfully Being Marked as Closed

Two months ago, a Google Maps exploit came to light where bad actors moved competitor pins to where they would lose all traffic. Before that, service area businesses suffered a major attack through a Local Service Ads loophole. Google also started the year by suffering under the weight of a massive spam attack. Well, it now seems it’s a specific industry’s time to shine, as hotels are currently targeted with their own listings woes.

Spammers have uncovered a listing editing exploit that allows them to hijack some Google Hotel listings. Hotels are being marked as permanently closed and/or having their phone numbers changed to a scam WhatsApp number. It is currently unknown how spammers are getting away with this, though it is presumed to be through mass falsely reported public edits. This issue seems to have started with hotels in the UAE and Indonesia, but it has the potential to spread to all Google Hotel listings. As such, hotel managers are encouraged to review their listings and overwrite these incorrectly altered data points with their own profile owner edits.