Recently, the BBB was contacted by a Dallas resident complaining that a locksmith company that advertised it was right down the street was not even in the same city.  In fact, the company, which advertised a fake name, was not even in the same state.

Attempting to locate the locksmith company, the consumer found that the advertised address down the street belonged to an unaffiliated engineering company.  It wasn’t until the consumer was billed that he thought to widen his search by 1,500 miles. The locksmith company was actually located in New Jersey.

This is “map spamming” and simply put, it is false advertising.

So, what is “map spamming?”

Map spamming is the evolved new version of directory spamming which involves the falsification of information within Web-based map directories.  The term describes the practice of dishonest advertisers using popular Web-based map directories, such as Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps, to create the false impression of a business’ local presence.

Directory spamming, map spamming’s predecessor, used physical directories like the yellow pages in (more…)