By Paul Greeley
817-578-6324, Paul@NewsBlues.com

You need some repairs to be done to your house.

So, you google plumbers, roofers, painters, etc. in your neighborhood.

You pick ones with good reviews and call them.

If you live in Minneapolis and in many places around the country, your call might be answered at a call center in the Philippines by operators working for a company that’s hijacked the Google identity of the local home repair business you’ve called.

And the owners of those local repair companies have no idea what’s going on—until it’s too late.

An investigation by A.J. Lagoe, an investigative reporter at KARE, Tegna’s NBC affiliate in Minneapolis, exposes, in a step-by step process, how one internet scammer has made millions deceiving customers by stealing the identities of home repair companies.

The nationwide investigation, “KARE 11 Investigates: Phantom Fixers”, started with a phone call from a plumber who had done work on Lagoe’s residence.

“He said, you’re an investigative reporter, right? Somebody stole my Google business listing, and it’s been costing me a whole bunch of business because I didn’t notice it for a while,” Lagoe says.

Lagoe began looking into it and thought it would be a quick fix.

“I had left the plumber a glowing Google review,” Lagoe says. “And it turned out whoever had hijacked his Google listing and changed the phone number stole my Google review for him as well.”

Lagoe did some digging.

“The first thing we did was check who had taken the plumber’s business,” he says. “There’s a name of a business listed now on Google, there’s a phone number, it’s got all of the real plumber’s photos, and it’s got all the real plumber’s reviews listed to it.”

Lagoe checked the address listed but nobody at the address had any idea about it.

Lagoe dug some more.

“I liken it to pulling the string and seeing where it takes you.,” he says.

What Lagoe found was that customers who thought they were hiring the real legitimate plumber had people showing up at their door who were doing more damage than repair, he says.

Following the money, Lagoe tracked down the phantom company and the CEO and founder.

The company advertises all over the country for contractors in every trade and when the phantom company gets a call destined for a legitimate local home repair business, they send their sub-contractor, Lagoe says.

“This story can be told in every market in America,” he says.

“KARE 11 Investigates: Phantom Fixers” aired on Thursday, October 31 at 10 p.m.  According to the station, that newscast delivered +82% over NBC’s prime time lead in from 9:45 – 10pm Average Audience, based on Comscore HH w/A25-54 for that night.

Lagoe says “the most important thing we do as a news organization is tackle the big, complicated stories that you just can’t do in a day. The journalism that we do changes laws. It makes societal improvements. There are multiple pieces of legislation being introduced at the Capitol because of our stories.”

CLICK HERE to go to KARE’s website page for more information about “KARE 11 Investigates: Phantom Fixers”.

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