An unfamiliar discount on a Google Business Profile can create a customer promise that the business did not intend to make. The useful first question is who supplied it. A newly reported Google help guide on November 6 clarifies offer sources and a removal route for unauthorized providers. Use that guidance to investigate one visible offer rather than editing unrelated profile fields.
Identify the promotion before choosing a fix
Google distinguishes third-party provider offers from promotions identified through merchant offer posts or linked social profiles. Availability is limited by region and language. A visible promotion therefore does not, by itself, prove that someone changed the business’s own post or obtained access to its account.
Record the exact location, offer wording, destination and any named provider. Compare them with the current promotion calendar and the account’s own posts. Ask whoever manages social publishing whether the same promise exists on a linked profile. For a multi-location business, check the affected branch before assuming a nationwide problem.
If the business controls the post, correct the promise
Google’s post guidance allows published posts to be edited or deleted. Offer posts require a title, dates and time; additional terms can describe the conditions. If this is the source you control, review the complete promise: eligibility, participating location, minimum purchase, expiry and destination. Updating a date while leaving contradictory terms elsewhere does not settle the customer’s question.
Keep a before-and-after record and check the public result. Treat correction as unfinished until the relevant information visible to customers is reviewed. If the offer cannot be found among the merchant’s posts, return to provenance instead of creating another post in the hope that it will displace the original. That would add a second promise without identifying the first.
Build an evidence packet for an unauthorized provider
For the unauthorized-provider route, Google’s guide directs businesses to Support using “Remove Offers” and the “Fix Posts” category. Prepare the provider’s name, an offer screenshot or description, and the relationship status. State what is observable: for example, that the displayed provider has no current relationship with this location. Avoid turning an unexplained offer into an unsupported allegation of account compromise.
Give the case one owner. Keep the screenshot, capture time, support reference, provider correspondence and request date together. If a former supplier is involved, involve the person who manages that commercial relationship. The operational aim is to have a consistent evidence trail, not several employees opening competing requests with different explanations.
Track the removal request and verify the outcome
The guide specifies removal by the provider within five business days of a business’s request and a violation-report route if that does not happen. This is not a promise that Google resolves every case five days after the offer was first noticed. Record the actual request date and follow the current support instructions available to the account.
Use four closure checks: the disputed offer is no longer visible in the checked context; the destination no longer repeats the error; frontline staff know the current conditions; and the team has recorded the source and corrective action. If the problem remains, update the existing evidence packet before escalating. An inaccurate price promise is best managed as a specific publishing and provider issue, with customer-facing verification at the end.
Sources
- Google Business Profile Help: Manage offers on your Business Profile
- Google Business Profile Help: Create and manage posts
- Barry Schwartz: Google Business Profiles Manage Offers Help Document
