In the passage of time, there may be various reasons to remove your involvement with a business that you’ve previously claimed. It may have unfortunately gone out of business, been handed over to another person to manager, or otherwise. In one situation, we had another business owner take over and they went on to claim their listing in Google. To prevent our content and information from being shown, we subsequently went to remove the verified listing from our account. When doing so, I was presented with the option to completely remove the listing from Google Maps along with a requirement for additional PIN verification. It should be noted that the listing had already been verified, showing statistics and in good standing.
We’re not clear if this secondary verification was required because another account claimed the listing or if Google relied upon other signals that affirm that the businesses is alive and kicking. Previously, in other situations, we had carte blanch to remove any verified listing from Maps. In any event, kudos Google for this additional security measure. This essentially prevents unlawful business listing hijackers to maliciously remove competitors from the Maps.
Anyway, we selected the correct, first option.
In turn, after a few minutes, our content was removed from the record and the listing compressed to the new business owners information.