Check the number clients find.

By Tyler Mayberry · Cirlet. Published 2026-10-28. Page updated 2026-10-28.

AI-assisted original checklist. The example is fictional; no client records.

When clients can’t find your card, they search for your agency’s name and call whatever number shows up. If someone has changed that number, your client is talking to them.

This has happened to insurance agencies. In December 2016, Word & Brown passed on a warning from NAHU: brokers across the country were finding their Google listings switched to a telemarketer’s number, and that telemarketer sold insurance to whoever called. In March 2025, Google sued an alleged scam network after removing more than 10,000 fake listings from Maps. Some were real businesses whose profiles had been hijacked and whose calls were routed somewhere else.

None of these sources say AI was involved. It still belongs on this site. Our impersonation playbook says to call back on a number you already trust. A changed listing turns “just look up their number” into the attacker’s line.

Download the check sheet · TXT

A 15-minute check

1. Minutes 1–2: write down the right answers. Take your agency’s name, main phone number, website and office address from your own records. Don’t copy them from a search result.
2. Minutes 3–8: search the way a client would. Use a phone. Search your agency’s name and town in Google Search, Google Maps, Apple Maps and Bing. Then check the places clients find you through insurers and associations: carrier “find an agent” pages, association directories and review sites. If you’re in Cirlet’s Independent Insurance Agencies directory, check that listing too; each one has a correction link. Compare every phone number and website digit by digit.
3. Minutes 9–12: check who controls your Google profile. Open your Business Profile, then Business Profile settings, then People and access. Every owner and manager should be someone you expect. The primary owner should be an account the agency can still sign in to, not a former employee or an old marketing vendor.
4. Minutes 13–15: write down what you found. For each place you checked, note what it showed and whether it was right. Give anything wrong or unknown to one person, with a date.

How a listed number gets changed

Anyone can suggest an edit to a Google listing. Google says it notifies owners about certain suggested edits before they go live. Once notified, an owner has 4 days to accept or reject the change. If nobody responds, Google may publish it when other public information supports it, such as your website.

So two things matter. Someone at the agency has to actually see Google’s emails, and your own website has to show the right number.

A 2024 test shows why. Local search consultant Mike Blumenthal had three people suggest a new phone number for a listing he owned. The first suggestion was rejected, the second went to pending and the third went live almost at once. He was the primary owner and got no alert. A manager on the listing got the email. Google’s process may have changed since then.

A fictional example

A client calls on Monday morning: “I called your after-hours number on Saturday to report a claim. They asked for my card number.” The CSR searches the agency’s name. Google Maps shows a number nobody recognizes.

The CSR doesn’t call it. The owner corrects the number from the owner account and saves a dated screenshot of what the listing showed. The agency calls the client back on the number in its own records and follows its incident process for the card details.

If the number is wrong

• Correct it from an owner account and save a dated screenshot of what you found.
• If nobody at the agency can get in, use Google’s request ownership process.
• Treat client calls to the wrong number as a possible incident and follow your incident process. In 2016, Word & Brown also told affected brokers to file a complaint with their insurance regulator.
• Tell staff which number is right. Make sure it’s on your website, your email signatures and the documents clients keep.

Sources

• Word & Brown, “Google My Business” Fraud Alert, December 6, 2016.
• CBS News, Google finds 10,000 fake listings on Google Maps, sues alleged network of scammers, March 19, 2025.
• Mike Blumenthal, Near Media: Hacking a Business Phone Number on a Google Listing Is (Still) Easy, August 18, 2024.
• Google Business Profile Help: Understand Google updates on your Business Profile.
• Google Business Profile Help: Manage your Business Profile owners & managers.
• Google Business Profile Help: Request ownership of a Business Profile.

All sources checked October 28, 2026. Google changes its menus and rules, so follow its current help pages. This check won’t find every fake listing, and a clean check today doesn’t mean the number stays right. Cirlet isn’t affiliated with Google, NAHU or Word & Brown.

Cirlet publishes this free resource and also offers paid cybersecurity, AI training and automation help.

Verify an unexpected request · Assign what’s still unknown · All agency playbooks