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The bugs in Google Maps and Google Places seem to always be endless, but yea - a Google engineer or more are always working on fixing the issues.
Specifically with "owner replies", we've had an issue where owners were unable to reply at least a few times. That being said, it is an issue again.
Google's Maps representative, Vanessa said it is not just an issue, there are "many issues" with it.
She said in a Google Places Help thread:
There are many issues with owner responses right now, the engineers are working on it.
These engineers are always so busy on Google Maps related issues - must be exciting.
Forum discussion at Google Places Help.
Comments:
Nyagoslav Zhekov
05/03/2012 02:01 pm
2 main reasons why responses to reviews might not be working (imho): 1) Reviews seem to be in a separate database and it is hard for Google to associate them with the correct listing/cluster sometimes. I believe sometimes even if the reviews appear to be "attached" to the listing at the front end (Google Places), they are actually not at the back end. 2) If there is more than one owner-verified account this seems to cause discrepancy with the linear method in which a cluster is associated with an owner, i.e. there cannot be more than one owner at a time and only one is the "rightful" owner at each particular time. Thus, only this "rightful" owner could respond to the reviews. Just my few cents :)