There’s something strange in your neighborhood; it’s US Ghost Adventures (UGA). I found the following video documenting US Ghost Adventures‘ antics on Google. In this video, Mason documents some disturbing allegations against UGA.
UGA is setting up Google Business Profiles (GBPs) across the United States. There is nothing wrong with that. The issue is how UGA is doing it. First, they aren’t using the name US Ghost Adventures on their GBPs. They are using names similar to competitors. Unless they have a DBA, they can’t use Baltimore Ghost Tours: Ghost Tours and Haunted Pub Crawls. That is not the only issue. They aren’t located at many of the addresses they are using. Some of the addresses are incomplete or improperly formatted. They do seem to be creating brand confusion with the mom-and-pop businesses. The keywords in their business name give them an unfair advantage over businesses that play by the rules.
In Mason’s video, Mason showed how UGA is preventing negative reviews. After someone completes the tour, they receive a text asking how they liked it. If you rate positively, you are asked to leave a review on Google. If you rate the tour poorly, you are asked to leave private feedback. This is called review-gating. This practice violates Google’s TOS. Google has removed reviews from businesses that use review-gating. UGA could lose reviews connected to this video’s posting or dating back to April 2018. The review link comes from Ijunket, which redirects to wejunket. Both companies are owned by the same person, Lance Zaal. The video shows someone who had a bad tour experience being directed to leave a negative review on a competitor’s GBP. That’s shady. This appears to barely scratch the surface. I am hearing more horror stories.
When people created a GBP, if you show your address, Google would send out a pin postcard. They have ended this program and switched over to video verification. For some reason, Google is allowing GBPs with “tour operator” as their primary category to be verified instantly. This gives UGA carte blanche to create new GBPs. There are no checks and balances here. Mason created a GBP, and so did I. UGA can flood any market with GBPs. Yes, it can get worse.
It does get worse with UGA. Two review profiles are questionable: Lou Gazelle and Anna B. Lou left a review for Zonic Media. Lou and Anna left a negative review for the same restaurant. Anna left a review for UGA in Fall River, MA. Anna also left negative reviews for two competitors. Sadly, one competitor lost all its reviews. One of UGA’s GBPs has its reviews. A GBP Product Expert (PE) advised the business owner that people were using malicious edits to update the phone number and address. The phone number belonged to UGA. Google suspended them after they lost their reviews. Their reviews have been missing from their profile for three months. UGA responded to several of the reviews. Talk about adding insult to injury.
US Ghost Adventures: the unfriendly ghost
One of UGA’s competitors has been dealing with years of headaches. Baltimore Ghost Tours has had people leave negative reviews after becoming confused with UGA’s GBP. UGA has changed their GBP name from Us Ghost Adventure – Baltimore to Baltimore Ghost Tours: Ghost Tours and Haunted Pub Crawls. The owner of the real Baltimore Ghost Tours has a DBA. UGA is infringing on their business name. Someone edited the UGA GBP in August 2023 to change the name to Baltimore Ghost Tours. They changed the address and website to match the real Baltimore Ghost Tours. These edits appear to have tricked Google into marking the real Baltimore Ghost Tours as a duplicate. Google moved the real Baltimore Ghost Tours’ reviews over to the UGA GBP. UGA’s The real Baltimore Ghost Tours has lost its reviews on two separate occasions. GBP is the only one to show up for the search term Baltimore Ghost Tours. The real Baltimore Ghost Tours has lost not only all its reviews but also its online presence. Somebody connected to UGA replied to all of Baltimore Ghost Tours’ reviews.
I have found 215 GBPs connected to UGA using various names. They are using 37 different websites. The names being used on GBP appear to be used for an unfair ranking advantage. Google places a major emphasis on the business name for ranking. These names appear to violate Google’s TOS. If UGA hasn’t registered these names or has a DBA, they are violating the name guidelines. Several of the addresses don’t appear to be UGA offices. Eight of the addresses are incomplete and don’t list a street number. Both of these TOS violations can lead to an account-level suspension. Google would blacklist the associated email address and suspend all GBPs.
Hopefully, Google will take action and require all GBPs using tour operator as a primary category to complete video verification. Google needs to suspend and remove all of the UGA GBPs and restore Baltimore Ghost Tours’ reviews.