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The Calgary family business has long been accused Google To drive traffic to other businesses in strange situations.

Ryan Showell, owner shopkeeper costumevia a Google listing showing the address as canadian pirate fashion, Even if the photo and phone number belong to the company. Showell said he discovered it about three weeks ago while trying to geotag a photo.

“(The site) says I’m at Pirate Fashions Canada. Um, I’m on my block. Who is Pirate Fashions Canada for?

The Costume Shoppe has been in Calgary since 1994 and at its current location just off the Blackfoot Trail for 12 years. Showell said he found it “absolutely absurd” to have a search engine tell him he was in the wrong place.

“(Google) says you don’t exist, so you don’t exist,” he said. “They say The Costume Shoppe isn’t The Costume Shoppe – it’s that Florida company – so we’re a Florida company. It doesn’t make sense.”

The listing that tells Schoel he’s in the wrong place also contains a link to a website – again not to The Costume Shoppe, but to Pirate Fashions.

He called the American company but said his concerns weren’t overblown. The owner clicks on Google settings indicating that the business does not exist on this site. However, Schweil said it made things worse.

“Google turns around and says permanently closed. That’s cool, but there’s still a picture of my building, so it looks like mine is now closed.

“It’s not a win. The win for me is that it all comes down to deception.

The fashion hacker told Global News he didn’t know until Schoel called him. He also said he didn’t do anything wrong in the end and tried to help by telling Google it was the wrong address.

However, when we asked why Google wouldn’t pay to remove the listing, owner Tiger Lee told us that the removal didn’t hurt the company and may have helped it.

Global News has also contacted Google for comment and has not heard back.

Schoel also filed a complaint with the search engine, but was unhappy with the Google team’s response, believing it wasn’t a real person.

“At this time, Google has decided not to take any action,” the email said.

“Local listings (including business listings) displayed on Google Search and Google Maps aim to provide our users with the most complete and up-to-date information” about a location. “

Schoel doesn’t know how many customers have been turned away by faulty menus and Google Maps, but he says business would be pretty tough if that didn’t happen.

“Coming out of the pandemic and trying to survive as a business is hard enough. Adding to the problem by blatantly and falsely showing my company’s website like any other company is bad and unethical.

He added that while he knew bugs were occurring, he hoped Google would take his concerns seriously and fix the problem.

“In reality, there should be a point and check system,” he said. “I hope there will be bugs but there must be a way to fix them.”