We know that Google has a history of calling companies and selling them to use Google Ads. Sometimes that means they may call your clients that are already using Google Ads to convince them to do things differently, which might result in you losing a client. These poaching efforts, either intentionally or not, happen all the time.
Pamela Lund, a respected SEM, had a run in recently with one and said they even called Google Ads, AdWords - by its old name. Here is her tweet:
Is @GoogleAds outsourcing account reps to a company called Teleperformance? Client got a mostly legit looking* email from a https://t.co/DkdpJXcBK3 email address claiming they were the new 'Agency Account Strategist'.
— Pamela Lund (@Pamela_Lund) January 6, 2020
*They said AdWords instead of Google Ads
What is this Teleperformance? Well, Google has a help page about this company. They are legit Google Ads outsourced partners and they can use google.com email addresses, even though they are outsourced. Here is what the page says:
Teleperformance works with Google Ads to help customers set up their first online advertising campaigns and deliver related support and services.While Google has many valued partners and resellers of Google Ads, Teleperformance is a global organization working on behalf of Google to help new advertisers start and optimize their campaigns across a wide range of countries, including Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Always check carefully the identity of persons or entities claiming to act, on behalf of Google. You can do this by asking them to send you an email so that you can verify their identification. Google representatives, such as those at Teleperformance, always have an email address that ends with @google.com.
So when you get an email or call from someone that has proof they are @google.com - that can be pretty hard to compete with.
Sad to see Google doing this through a partner.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
