Washington Post [unpaywalled]: “Scams just keep popping up when you Google. On Monday, I found what appeared to be impostors of customer service for Delta and Coinbase, the cryptocurrency company, in the “People also ask” section high up in Google. A group of people experienced in Google’s intricacies also said this week that it took about 22 minutes to fool Google into highlighting a bogus business phone number in a prominent spot in search results. This fits a persistent pattern of bad guys finding ways to trick Google into showing scammers’ numbers for airlines, hotels, local repair companies, banks or other businesses. The toll can be devastating when people are duped by these bogus business numbers. Fortune recently reported on a man who called what a Google listing said was Coinbase customer support, and instead it was an impostor who Fortune said tricked the man and stole $100,000. Scammers impersonate businesses and government agencies all over the internet. But Google search is unique as the planet’s most widely used online service and the front door to the world’s information. Most of the time, you will find correct customer service numbers by Googling. But the company doesn’t say how often people are tricked out of time and money by bogus listings — nor why Google can’t stop the scams from recurring…”