Wrong Phone Number on Google or Bing? What It Costs, and How I Fix It

If Google shows the wrong phone number for your business, it didn't make it up. It copied it from somewhere: your website, an old directory, a public edit or a data supplier. Until you fix that source, it keeps coming back however many times you correct it, and customers keep ringing a number you gave up two years ago.

Why Google, Bing and Apple disagree about you

Each of them keeps its own record of your business. Google says it builds yours from your website, licensed data from third parties, and information contributed by users. Bing Places and Apple Maps are separate listings you manage separately. Online directories copy each other, and many take their addresses from the same national database. So one old mistake doesn't stay in one place. It spreads.

Where the wrong number actually lives

The wrong detail usually lives in one of these places:

• Your own website. An old footer, a contact page nobody updated, a PDF price list from three years ago. This matters more than people think: if someone suggests an edit to your Google profile and you don't respond within four days, Google may publish it if it's supported by public information such as your website.
• Old directory listings that were set up once and forgotten.
• Your social bios, which Google can read like any other page.
• Royal Mail's Postcode Address File (PAF). Around 50,000 UK organisations use PAF data, so a wrong address there gets copied widely.
• Companies House. A common one. Your registered office is on the public register, and many small companies use their accountant's address for it. That's perfectly allowed, but check no directory has picked it up as the place you trade.

What a wrong phone number costs you

A wrong number is a missed call, and a missed call from a stranger rarely rings back. They just try the next business on the list.

It also costs trust. A customer who sees two addresses for you on two sites starts wondering which one is real, or whether you're still trading. And Google says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up in local results. Details that contradict each other are the opposite of that.

The order I fix it in

1. Decide the one true version. Business name exactly as it's on your sign, address in Royal Mail's format, one phone number, one website address. Write it down and never vary it.
2. Your own website, every page and footer.
3. Google Business Profile.
4. Bing Places and Apple Maps.
5. Royal Mail, if the address itself is wrong. There's an online form to report it. Changes can take up to five days to reach PAF, and longer to filter through to everyone who uses it.
6. Existing directory listings that are wrong, before creating any new ones. A wrong old listing does more harm than a new one does good.
7. Social bios, so they say the same thing in the same words.

V Signs: four phone formats, two postcodes, one answer

When I started working with V Signs, a sign and wrap company near Petersfield, they looked like three or four slightly different businesses online. The name appeared as V Signs, V Signs UK, VSigns and V Signs UK Ltd. The same phone number was written four different ways. Listings used two different postcodes. The address still carried the name of a shop that left the unit more than ten years ago, and said "Hampshire", though Rake is officially West Sussex. One construction directory had them filed under Electrical Contractors.

Now, everywhere I've fixed, it reads the same:

V Signs · London Road, Rake, Liss, GU33 7PF · 01730 892201 · vsignsuk.com

I fixed Google, Bing Places and Apple, rewrote the Instagram bio and Facebook intro, and submitted a correction to Royal Mail to remove the old shop name from the official address. I skipped Foursquare on purpose: claiming it was paid, and it overlapped with Apple. The target for the directories is 25 or more listings, with wrong ones fixed before any new ones are added.

What difference has it made? It's too early to say fairly. Their new website went live on 5 September 2026, and I'll write up the results when there's enough data. What I can say is that search engines cross-check these details, and V Signs now gives them one answer.

A ten-minute self-audit

• Search your old phone number in quotes on Google. Every result that isn't yours to delete is a listing to fix.
• Do the same with your old postcode and any old business name.
• Look yourself up on Google Maps, Bing Maps and Apple Maps.
• Check your address on Royal Mail's postcode finder.
• Find your company on the Companies House register and note your registered office.
• Read your own website's footer and contact page.

Write down every mismatch. That list is your job sheet. For how this fits the bigger picture, read do I need a Google Business Profile if I have a website? and what local SEO means for a trade business.

If you'd rather hand it over, my Local SEO profile and listings setup is £350 one-off: one consistent name, address and number across Google, Bing, Apple, Royal Mail and 25 directories. Tell me what's wrong and where.

Mark Jarvis

Born in Petersfield in 1986, now based in Poland. Twenty-five years running real businesses, and now I build websites, local SEO and socials for Hampshire small businesses. Every price I quote is on one page.