About two months ago, I noticed the name of the British Council Office in Lagos, Nigeria had been changed to Malaysia Education Consultant shortly after I visited the place. I was surprised, thinking it was unlikely British Council would just move their office or change their name, but knowing British Council to be quite popular, with so many visitors, photos and reviews, I thought anything suspicious would not go undetected for long.
But two weeks ago, one of my friends visited the place and confirmed there was nothing related to Malaysia Education Consultant at the place. It was still the same old British Council, but it was still Malaysia Education Consultant on Google Maps.
To correct this, I suggested a change of name back to British Council on Google Maps. That was when I discovered the problem was more than just the name. The phone number had also been changed to a Malaysian number and the website to a Facebook Messenger link. I also discovered the same thing had been done to another British Council office located in Kumasi, Ghana. Though, I am not sure, I believe this is an unscrupulous attempt to use a well established place to attract people to another business.
I won’t recommend tighter restrictions on edits because I know what it feels like to spend over thirty minutes compiling information for an edit, only to have it instantly disapproved, but something needs to be done to block the loopholes in the already tight measures in place to ensure the integrity of Google Maps edits.
As a final note, my edit to the name is still pending. I have not done anything to the phone number and website out of fear of immediate disapproval and damage to my reliability as a contributor. @SanyaOdare and other top local guides, please help me out on this.
