Users making many fake nominations in Italy

Hello guys

I am here for an advice. Being mod of a large group of members on facebook, we are discovering many many fake candidatures, done here.

The method is always the same... fake photosphere made in ine city and then same candidature applied for 10 20 different cities using the same photosphere that I dont know how is repeated in all those cities.

Just an example. A religious building has been candidated in Rome, but also some other small cities around Genoa, Florence etc. The photosphere is exactly the same and we think that this guy is selling nominations. We do not have prooves about the selling but we are sure that candidatures are fake. What we can do? This phenomenon is becoming really huge in Italy

Comments

  • WheelTrekker-INGWheelTrekker-ING Posts: 3,387 ✭✭✭✭✭

    The first step is to report those fake photospheres to Google. They care about the data that the users provide.

  • LolloJuventus-PGOLolloJuventus-PGO Posts: 79 ✭✭✭

    I totally agree with what Pakoesilvia13 said: when I was on Wayfarer, I had to vote a nomination in the town called Monte Porzio Catone (near Roma): it was in an almost rural area with just one modern building with just apartments inside. This cheater proposed a shutter art from Genova (about 500 km away): the landscape was typical of a city center, and on a store sign there was a phone number with Genova's area code (010), instead of Roma (06). Of course I googled that phone number and I found out about the store being in Genova and so the photo sphere was taken there. This guy also created 2 fake pins on google maps (newspaper shop and toy shop) just to make photo sphere look more believable. Clearly I reported photo sphere and pins on google maps, and so I reported that pokestop nomination as an abuse. Then it happened again with another shutter art: photo taken in Genova and placed in Monte Porzio Catone. I reported also these photo sphere and google pin. Unfortunately this fake portal has been approved, but after I reported it, it finally disappeared.

    But I honestly don't think it's something happening only in Italy.

  • AKeynes-PGOAKeynes-PGO Posts: 1 ✭✭

    I wish to add that this kind of fake nominations are really difficult to spot and thus there's an high chance that they will pass our scrutiny, since it takes at least two conditions for us to notice:

    • we need to encounter the fake nomination more than once in a short timespan;
    • we need to know the real world city or point of interest.

    In this situation, I think it could really be useful for us to have some way to share our doubts with other players during the review process and before a final agreement is reached. I often write mine as a comment, but I don't know if other Wayfarers or Niantic staff read them and where 🤔

    I hope that this is just an isolated case and that all of us who play by the rules won't get damaged by the likes of these people, as it would happen if Niantic were to decide that photospheres are no longer acceptable when proposing a new Pokéstop. Just think of all those places Google hasn't mapped yet nor updated in a while...

    Thank you and keep up with the good work! 😊

  • LolloJuventus-PGOLolloJuventus-PGO Posts: 79 ✭✭✭

    Now his fake photo sphere is there again. I already reported it to Google. Hopefully they'll erase it again.

  • Pirodappe-PGOPirodappe-PGO Posts: 1 ✭✭

    Io personalmente non accetto location che non siano comprovate da SV, se la zona è troppo diversa! Quando al centro di un paese medioevale ti ritrovi una chiesa Moderna con solo la foto da fotosfera tendo a bocciare la candidatura!

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