Shoplifting Treatment Center Calls

There is no rest for the weary when it comes to the daily battle with against digital shoplifters and complacent corporate bureaucracy.

We suffer from daily manipulation of trademarked names in behavioral health AdWords listings. The scammers create new domains and adjust the advertisements daily. They advertise they are the admission's office or manipulate the Google policy filters by adding in extra characters to the trademarked name. They also take advantage of advertising on keywords that do not get caught up in the Legit Script filter. The two examples in the header of this article show how programs are targeted with their trademarked names in the shoplifters ad copy. In the above example The Meadows and Promises are being ghosted by these shoplifters. The shoplifters are advertising that they are the "admissions department" for these programs and using The Meadows and Promises names in the ad copy. You can clearly see how they are using additional characters in a bid to outsmart the Google and Legit Script filters.

These loop holes could be rooted in the Reseller and Informational Site Policy. The tech companies seem to need an Ombudsman. Someone to relish in vanquishing these illegal tactics from their platforms.

Being a British car fan I would opt to bring back The Equalizer. “Odds Against You? Need Help? Call the Equalizer“ I can just imagine now that striking Jaguar XJ-6 pulling up, Edward Woodward getting out, walking into one of the Google office towers to discuss paid search manipulation.

The act of adding additional characters to the trademarked name seems to disrupt the search engine filters and does not create much of a visual warning to patients or families searching. Seeing your facility name listed and a hyphen, question mark or bracket is not much of a visual cue to a person searching that this site is a rip-off.

The thieves are taking advantage of weak trademark name policy, avoiding Legit Script detection of a valid treatment center and practice hit and run domain tactics. Many of the domains will run for a few weeks until formal complaints alert the search engines. These shoplifters then pop up same day on another new domain.

In 2019 retailers in the United States lost $62 billiion dollars due to shoplifting which was 1.6% of retail sales according to the National Retail Federation. If we apply a similar metric to behavioral health that would extrapolate to $1.4 billion dollars lost to the $90.5 billion dollar behavioral health market in 2020. In 2020, 13,000 Americans reported mortgage fraud that cost them over $200 million dollars according to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center. I think that the fraud being perpetuated on treatment centers is percentage wise similar to retail but a higher value lost like mortgage fraud. That could well push losses in our industry to well over $2 billion a year.

How pervasive is the problem? I think it has grown substantially during the pandemic. I have received a number of “offers” to sell calls in addition to discovering these violations during my research for clients. The business of intercepting calls for help through illicit advertising seems to be booming. The math apparently works. A scammer can set up in under an hour and start harvesting calls fraudulently. Just a handful of calls covers their setup time.

What can I do? Pay attention. Your team has to check every few days if you are not using Adwords. If you are using Adwords it needs to be part of your daily routine like optimizing geography and negative keywords. And unfortunately you are going to have to shell out some dollars to cover your trademarked name and variations in AdWords so you at least appear first in search ahead of the shoplifters.

Who do I complain to? First, email your Representative and Senator, it is important for elected officials to understand how the manipulation of digital advertising is negatively impacting treatment centers and patients in their districts and state.

Second, file a fraud complaint with the Federal Trade Commission via their website.

Third, complain to Google. One of the big drawbacks is that it is difficult to find out who is behind the fraud and manipulation. When you call the numbers many times the fraudsters act innocent or “confused.” They will not identify themselves or will lie about who they are. Disguising themselves as another treatment center or insurance company. Keep detailed notes and screenshots of the sites and phone numbers and include them in your complaints and letters. Google knows who they are since they are spending money on the Google Adwords platform.

The example below shows another misleading tactic. ConnecticutRecovery.org is using Sabino Recovery's trademarked name in their ad with the additional character, the question mark. Sabino Recovery is in Arizona and this Connecticut program is bidding on their trademarked name and using it in the ad copy. Clearly the Connecticut group is comfortable manipulating the Google platform to attempt to subvert calls interested in a boutique trauma program in Arizona. Who would go to a program that manipulates advertising policies and patients that way?