A roofer found someone else’s phone number on his own Google listing. Google sent him a template.
He did not lose the listing. He did not get hacked. He just started losing calls he never knew were coming.
Tradies Revenue X-Ray
6 September 2026. Every quote below is from the platform's own help centre.
There is a particular kind of bad day that does not announce itself.
Your gear is fine. Nobody has rung to complain. The van started. And somewhere on a screen you have not looked at in two years, a photograph is sitting on your Google listing with a phone number printed across it.
Not your number.
This happened to a roofer. It was documented on 10 September this year by a local search specialist called Naomi Stevens, and reported by Search Engine Roundtable. The mechanism is simple enough to explain in a sentence, which is part of what makes it unpleasant.
Somebody uploaded an AI-generated image to his Google Business Profile with a fraudulent phone number baked into the picture. Not in the caption. Not in a field he could edit. In the image itself, where no spell-check and no policy filter is looking.
Google then displayed it. In the owner’s own words:
“Google is displaying the it prominently on the profile so it almost looks like a cover image or profile pic!”
So a homeowner searches for a roofer, finds his listing — his real listing, with his real reviews and his real work on it — sees a big clear photo with a phone number on it, and rings that number.
She thinks she has rung him.
Your Google listing is not a form you filled in. It is a wall other people can write on.
Here is the thing most tradies have never been told, and it is not their fault, because nobody sells it as a warning.
A Google Business Profile is not a page you own outright. It is a page you claim, and the public can contribute to. Photos. Suggested edits. Questions. Answers to those questions. Corrections to your hours. Google calls the people who do this contributors, and the programme is open to essentially anyone signed in.
Most of the time this is harmless and occasionally useful. A customer takes a photo of your work and it lands on your listing. Good.
But it means there is a part of your listing that other people write, and you have almost certainly never read it.
Be honest for a second. When did you last open the photos tab on your own Google listing? Not the Maps app on your phone — the actual profile, the one you manage. Scrolled through everything on it. Checked who put what there.
Most tradies answer that question the same way: never. Not once since the day they set it up.
The part that costs money is the part you cannot see
If somebody left a bad review, you would know. Google emails you. You would have read it three times in the ute before you replied.
This is not that. This is quieter and it is worse.
The call goes to a different number. The homeowner who rang it either gets someone else’s business or gets nothing at all, decides you are unreliable, and rings the next name on the list. And you —
You get nothing. No missed call. No voicemail. No bounced email. No notification of any kind, because from your phone’s point of view nothing happened. The call was never yours to miss.
That is the actual future cost, and it is why this one is different from every other marketing problem you have been warned about. There is no number at the end of this paragraph, because the loss does not generate one. A slow week just looks like a slow week.
“Yeah, but who’d bother targeting me?”
Fair question, and it has a specific answer.
Nobody targeted the roofer.
One contributor account in this case — possibly under the name “Jack Edward” — has more than 150 photo contributions to unrelated businesses across the United States. The same incorrect phone number appears on images for other businesses too.
Read that again, because it changes what kind of problem this is. This is not somebody deciding to go after one roofer. It is somebody running volume across whatever profiles will accept an upload, and collecting whoever rings.
You are not a target. You are in the spray radius. Being small does not protect you here — if anything it helps, because a small business is less likely to have someone whose job it is to look.
And when he asked Google for help, this is what came back
He contacted Google support. The reply, in full:
“From the info you shared, we’re not sure of your exact issue, but here are solutions to the most common issues…”
A template. Followed by links to the most common issues, none of which was his.
No fix. No escalation. No human.
That is worth sitting with for a moment, because it settles a question you might otherwise waste a week on. The company that displayed the fraudulent number on your listing is not going to notice on your behalf, and is not reliably going to help when you tell them. Which means the check is yours, and the only real defence is knowing sooner rather than later.
Before you go any further — this has not been reported in Australia
I am not going to sell you a panic, so here is the limitation stated plainly.
Every documented case of this is American. No Australian business has reported it publicly, and I have not seen it on an Australian profile. If someone tells you there is an outbreak on the Northern Beaches, ask them for the case, because I could not find one.
But nothing in how it works is American. It is not a US-only feature, a US-only policy or a US-only loophole. It is the ordinary Google Maps contributor system, which works the same way in Brookvale as it does in Texas.
So the honest position is this: it has not happened here that anyone has reported, it can, and the check takes half a minute. Do it anyway. If it comes back clean — and it almost certainly will — you have lost thirty seconds and gained the one thing you did not have this morning, which is knowing.
The check. Thirty seconds, and nothing to buy.
You need your phone and the Google account your listing is under.
1. Open your Google Business Profile. Search your own business name while signed in, or open the Google Business Profile app. You want the version with the edit controls, not the public view.
2. Go to Photos, and find the ones you did not upload. Google separates photos by who added them — yours sit apart from the ones contributed by others. The contributed set is the one to read. It is usually the tab nobody has ever opened.
3. Look at every image for text printed on it. You are looking for a phone number, a web address, or a business name that is not yours, printed onto the picture. Not in the caption — on the image. Zoom in if you need to.
4. Report anything that should not be there. Tap the photo, use the report or flag control, and select the reason. Then — and this matters — screenshot it first. If you have to chase it, you will want the evidence, and the photo disappears from your view once it is actioned.
While you are in there, two more tabs worth thirty seconds each: suggested edits anyone has made to your hours, category or address, and the questions and answers, where anyone can both ask and answer on your behalf.
That is the whole job. No login you do not already have, nothing to install, and nothing on this page to buy.
If you find one
Here is the part that catches people out, so it is worth knowing before you start.
You cannot delete it yourself. Google is explicit about this — as the business owner you can request removal, and the photo “is then reviewed and may possibly be removed from your Business Profile.” Somebody at Google makes the call, not you.
Before you touch anything, screenshot it. Get the photo, the number printed on it, and the date. Once a report is actioned the image vanishes from your view, and if you ever need to show anyone what happened — a customer who rang the wrong number, or Google itself on a second attempt — you will have nothing.
Reporting it, on a computer
- Go to your Business Profile
- Select Photos, then View all photos
- Select the photo you want removed
- Bottom right, select Report a problem
- Choose the reason
- Select Submit
Reporting it, on your phone
- Open the Google Maps app
- Bottom right, tap Business
- Tap See Business Profile, then Photos
- Select the photo
- Top right, tap More, then Report
- Choose the reason
- Tap Submit
Which reason to pick — this matters more than people think
Google offers a short list, including Privacy concern, Not a photo or video of the place, Spam and Personal information.
For an AI-generated image with a phone number on it, choose “Not a photo or video of the place.”
Not because it sounds the most serious — because it is the only one that is unarguably a fact. A reviewer can look at the image for one second and confirm it is not a photograph of your business. Every other reason asks them to make a judgement about intent, and judgements go both ways.
If that report fails, go back and report it again as Spam. Different reason, different reviewer, different outcome.
What happens next, and how long you are exposed
Google says “the review process can take several business days.”
Read that properly. For all of those days, the photo stays up and the number keeps ringing. There is no fast lane, no emergency form, and no way to take it down yourself while you wait.
So do these three things in the meantime, because they are the only things actually within your control:
- Check your own phone number is on the profile and correct. It sounds obvious. Go and look anyway.
- Put up a Google Post with your number in it. A current post sits high on the profile and gives a customer something correct to ring.
- Upload four or five good photos of your own work. Photos you add push the contributed ones down the grid. It will not remove anything, but it changes what someone sees first.
If the report goes nowhere
Google publishes no escalation path for this. There is no form, no phone number, no second-tier review documented anywhere.
The roofer this happened to contacted support and got a template that did not address his issue.
So: report it again under a different reason, and keep your screenshots. If it stays up, your own photos and a current post are doing more for you than another support ticket will.
What this is really about
One photo with a wrong number on it is a small problem with a large shape.
The shape is this: there are now several places where your business is described to a customer, and you did not write most of them. Your Google listing has a public contribution layer. Review sites carry your name. And when somebody asks an AI assistant who to call, it assembles an answer about you from whatever it can read — none of which it asks your permission for.
Most tradies are running on the assumption they set all this up once and it stayed the way they left it.
It did not. It is a live thing, and things that are live need looking at.
Go and check the photos tab. Then come back and finish your coffee.
If you want to know what the machines are saying about you
We publish the Northern Beaches Trade Visibility Index every month — 36 tests across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google, measuring which local trade businesses actually get named. It is free, the method is on the page, and nobody pays to be on it.
Or run the free Snapshot on your own business. Ninety seconds, no credit card.
Source: Search Engine Roundtable, 10 September 2026, reporting research by Naomi Stevens.
Questions
Can someone else change my Google Business Profile?
Partly, yes. You control your own details, but Google lets the public contribute photos, suggest edits to your hours, category or address, and both ask and answer questions on your listing. Those contributions appear on your profile without your approval. You can report them, but only once you know they are there.
Who can add photos to my Google Business Profile?
Essentially anyone signed in to a Google account. The Maps contributor programme is open, and there is no approval step before a photo appears. Customers use it legitimately all the time. It is also the route used in the scam reported in September 2026, where an image carried a fraudulent phone number.
How do I check if my Google Business Profile has been tampered with?
Three tabs, about thirty seconds each. Photos contributed by others — look for text printed onto the images. Suggested edits, for changes to your hours, category or address. Questions and answers, where anyone can answer on your behalf. Most trade business owners have never opened any of the three.
Someone put the wrong phone number on my Google listing — what do I do?
Screenshot it first, before you do anything else. Then open the photo on your profile, use the report control and select the reason. Keep the screenshot regardless of what happens — if you have to chase it, that image is your evidence, and it disappears from view once Google actions it.
How do I remove a photo someone else added to my Google listing?
You can’t delete it. You can only request removal, and Google decides. Open your profile, go to Photos, view all photos, select the one you want gone, then Report a problem and choose a reason. Screenshot it first — once it is actioned it disappears from your view, and so does your evidence.
Can I stop people adding photos to my Google listing?
No. Public photo contribution cannot be switched off on a verified Business Profile — it is how the platform is designed. What you can do is check regularly and report anything that should not be there. There is no setting that prevents it, which is exactly why the check matters.
Has this scam been reported in Australia?
Not that we can find. Every documented case is American, and we have not seen it on an Australian profile. But nothing in the mechanism is US-specific — it uses the ordinary Maps contributor system, which works the same way here. The check costs thirty seconds either way.
