LEGAL CORNER on Google, and where applicable, professional license validity. After your company has been approved to appear on Google, you will be asked to recertify that approval every twelve (12) months. To help reduce fraud and improve the overall experience for you and your customers, we’re now asking businesses to pass an advanced verification process. The process is simple—answer a few questions about your business and complete an application with Google’s third-party verification company. Although not as thorough as the vetting process that Google currently applies in its Google Home Services (which involves a full background invest igation), the new locksmith vetting process involves an application to Pinkerton, one of the world’s leading private security firms, contracted by Google. Google says the application process should take about two weeks from application to receipt of verification or refusal. Businesses that fail to comply will have their listings removed from Google Maps, organic search and paid search. Why This Matters ALOA has been fighting hard for years against scammers and for its members. And now, concretely: ALOA’s fighting is paying off! Roughly 70% of all internet search worldwide goes through Google’s various search engine tools, and internet search tools are how scammers intercept and defraud our prospective clients. Getting scammers off search engine listings is truly cutting the head off the snake. Even better, once Google fully implements this program, it will force the rest of the industry (Yahoo, Bing, ZipLocal, etc.) to comply with a similar vetting and screening process because Google’s Advanced Verification 54 KEYNOTES DECEMBER 2016 “Google’s proposed solution is to implement an industry-specific extreme vetting process they call ‘Advanced Verification’ for any locksmith wishing to appear in local Google search results.” will have changed the industry standard — and this matters in a court of law. In short, this is the single most promising piece of good news we’ve had regarding the scammer problem since the advent of the internet. The Long-Running Locksmith Scam If you’re new to the industry or somehow not familiar with the scammer problem, here’s how it works: When you search for a local service such as locksmiths, Google serves you results based on your location. The scam companies pretend they have business storefronts and service areas all over the country, so they appear in the search results as local companies offering a good-value service. It’s a deliberate deception. The “storefront” address is some other business, a house, an empty lot or even another legitimate locksmith. It’s a made-up address. When you call the local phone number for the company, you’re put through to a call center — often in another country — and a call operator sends over an agent for the scam company in an unmarked car. He is untrained in locksmithing but is well trained in getting your cash. He says the problem is worse than expected, takes some drastic, destructive action (such as drilling out your lock) and then demands immediate payment (in cash only) for many times the usual bill. They often drive victims to the nearest ATM. The scam works particularly well for emergency services that desperate people are searching for in a rush. Scam locksmiths are not a large group of individuals. They are a large group of (oſten unwitting) foreigners duped into following the directions of a few large-scale crime syndicates. This is low- risk, high-reward crime. If we can break their business model by kicking them off the internet search results, we may have found a solution to the scammer problem. We’ll have a better idea within a month or two of national rollout, but so far, this is legitimately promising. Stay in touch with ALOA regarding progress and implementation of this rollout over the course of 2017. We are here for our members and look forward to working with Google to make this new Advanced Verification program successful. Roberts At torneys, P.A. is located in Washington, D.C. , and Palm Beach Gardens, FL, and serves as general counsel for ALOA. The practice focuses on assisting business owners and business associations. Jeff can be reached at his Washington, D.C., office at (202) 609-7390; in Palm Beach Gardens, FL, at (561) 360- 2737, or at [email protected]. WWW.ALOA.ORG
