Scammer operating on AdWords

Any ideas how to report a dodgy advertiser?

[justbrowsing]

In the last few months, I've been noticing a certain advertiser dominating a set of keywords related to my sector. Unfortunately, this advertiser is a known scammer, and the ads they're running are for their scam, so I'm wondering how I might report them to the people at Adwords.

Any ideas? Is there a contact email or report form somewhere that I can fill in?

[poster_boy]

Any ideas? Is there a contact email or report form somewhere that I can fill in?

This should be a good start --> [adwords.google.com...]

I'd be sure to collect and send as much documentation as possible. Good luck!

[mortgagemax]

You might as well get use to it. We have been dealing with scammers and hackers for years. This has been acknowledged to us by Google. We have occasionally even been reimbursed for excess charges. Google will try to remove these ads when reported to them. We have all but given up since playing policeman for Google (which should be their responsibility) would take most of the day - everday. Google says they are concerned and this is a priority but yet these hackers/scammers still show up all over Google; They have so for several years after we first started reporting them. Google apparently does not care all that much. This is extremely frustrating especially over weekends and holidays when there (remarkably) is not Google customer support. Therefore, they remain up for days at a time with no one to remove the ads.

[justbrowsing]

Thanks - I'll give it a shot!

[justbrowsing]

Well, so much for that. I reported that there was a known scammer running their scam through AdWords, and got back a form email telling me to talk to my local better business bureau. It looked like an email they'd send if I told them I'd had a bad customer service experience with an advertiser, rather than reported a deliberate, organised scam.

The ads are still running, of course. I know Adwords staff read this board—if one pm's me here, I'd be happy to give them details and links to information about what's happening, but otherwise I'll let it lie.

[netmeg]

The problem is it's a no-win situation for Google. People are already railing at them left and right for privacy issues and interfering with advertisers' business models and the quality scores seeming to penalize small business. On top of that, if they become the Internet Police for one situation, then they kind of have to become the internet police for *every* situation. They don't have the time or the staff or the willingness to do that, and when it comes down to it - do you really want them to? What if one of your competitors reported you as a dodgy character to AdWords, and they had something like this in place - would you want Google all up in your grill investigating you ?

If the scammers are breaking laws, then it's up to law enforcement agencies to go after them. If they're just slimey, then you can fight back on your landing pages or in your ads - if you can't say anything about how they're scammers, you can write ads reiterating your own honesty, and possibly making them look bad by comparison, without using names (because if you use their name, and they're not breaking the law, they could well come after you with retaliatory statements and/or lawyers)

[vincevincevince]

netmeg is right. Scams are a matter for the police, to whom you are most probably legally bound to report any evidence of a crime.