Merchant Center suspended for misrepresentation: how to fix it

Updated 25 Sept 2026 · by Sergey Sachenok, Founder of Polyntor

Merchant Center showsMisrepresentation

In short

Misrepresentation means Google does not trust that your store is who it says it is, or that a buyer gets what the listing promises.
The notice names the policy, not the page. You have to find the gaps yourself: identity, contacts, returns, shipping, prices, claims.
Fix everything before you ask for a review. A failed review starts a wait before the next one, and it can grow each time.
Your website, your Merchant Center business information and your product feed must all say the same thing.

Check your store for this now

A free scan of your store against Merchant Center policies. No card needed.

What this suspension means

A misrepresentation suspension stops all of your products from showing in Shopping ads and free listings. It is an account-level decision: fixing one product does nothing. Google decided that something on your site could mislead a buyer, or that it cannot tell who is behind the store.

For serious cases Google suspends straight away, with no warning period. For lighter ones you may first get a warning with a date, usually 7 to 28 days, after which the suspension starts if nothing changes.

Why Google flags a store for it

The misrepresentation policy is broad. It covers hiding who runs the business, not stating the full price, offering products you cannot deliver, refusing returns your own policy promises, and claims a reasonable buyer would not believe.

For most small and new stores the cause is simpler: the site does not show enough to be trusted. A reviewer, or an automated check, opens your site the way a careful buyer would and asks:

Who is this? A business name, a real address, a phone number that is answered.
How do I reach them? A contact page, an email on your own domain, hours, a form.
What if something goes wrong? A returns policy with a time limit and who pays for return shipping.
When will it arrive and what will it cost? Shipping zones, costs and delivery times.
Is the price the price? The same price on the product page, in the feed and at checkout, with no fees added at the end.
Are the claims honest? No fake countdown timers, invented stock counters, reviews from nowhere or promises you cannot keep.

How to fix it, step by step

Show who runs the storePut the business or legal name, a physical address and a phone number on the site, at least in the footer and on the contact page. Use exactly the same name, address and phone number as in Merchant Center under Business information.
Build a real contact pagePhone, an email on your own domain (support@yourstore.com rather than a free mailbox), the address, opening hours, how fast you reply, and a contact form. More in Missing contact information.
Write a complete returns policySay whether you accept returns, within how many days, in what condition, who pays for return shipping, and how and when the money comes back. Link it from the footer and from every product page. More in Missing return and refund policy.
Write a shipping policy that matches your settingsWhere you ship, what it costs, processing time and delivery time. The numbers must match the shipping settings in Merchant Center. More in Missing shipping costs.
Make the price the whole priceThe price on the product page must match the price in your feed and the structured data, and checkout must not add fees the buyer did not see before. More in Mismatched product price.
Show the real productPhotos that match what the buyer actually receives, from more than one angle, and a description with real specifications. Stock images that do not quite match, or a single blurry photo, make the offer look unreliable.
Remove claims you cannot back upCountdown timers that reset, "only 2 left" counters that never change, star ratings without a source, "best in the world", health promises. If you cannot prove it, take it down.
Tell your story on an About us pageWho you are, where you work from, where the products ship from. If you dropship or products come from abroad, say so and give honest delivery times. More in Business information.
Check that the store works end to endHTTPS on every page, no broken links to policy pages, no "lorem ipsum" or empty template pages, and a checkout that lists the payment methods and lets a buyer finish an order. If you only take cash on delivery, consider adding card or online bank payment: a payment provider that has checked your business is one more sign of a real store.
Line up Merchant Center with the siteBusiness information, shipping and return settings in Merchant Center must say what the site says. Inconsistency between them is itself a reason for this suspension.

Asking for a review

When everything above is done, request a review from the issue in Merchant Center. Google says a review usually takes 3 to 7 business days. If it fails, a cool-down starts during which you cannot ask again, and every failed attempt can make it longer — so one well-prepared request is worth more than three quick ones.

Wait until your changes are live before you ask: a reviewer sees your site as it is at that moment. The details of the process are in Requesting a review after a suspension.

From experience: how my own store was suspended

I run a small online store in Ukraine, and Polyntor exists because Merchant Center suspended it for misrepresentation. Looking back, there was no single big mistake — there was a pile of small ones. Each looked harmless on its own; together they told Google the store could not be trusted.

What was wrong: product photos that were poor or did not quite match the product, and too few of them. A contact page with almost nothing on it. Nothing that showed a registered business behind the store — no details of the FOP, the Ukrainian sole-proprietor registration. No online card payment — no Visa or Mastercard, no online banking — so nothing a bank had ever verified. The feed had drifted away from the site. And some key pages, like returns and delivery, simply did not exist.

None of this is unusual. It is what a typical small store looks like when it is built quickly to start selling. That is why the list above goes through every part of the store instead of hunting for one cause — and why Polyntor checks all of it in a single scan.

What Polyntor checks for this

Business name, address, phone and email on the site, and whether they match what you declared
Contact page: phone, domain email, address, hours, reply time, contact form
About us page: who you are and where products ship from
Returns policy: window, condition, who pays return shipping, refund method and timing
Shipping policy: zones, costs, processing and delivery times
Terms and privacy policy, and links to all policies from the footer and product pages
Checkout and payment methods, HTTPS and a valid certificate
Prices on product pages against their structured data and your feed
Placeholder text, broken key pages and dead links

Fixed it? Scan again before you request a review

A free scan of your store against Merchant Center policies. No card needed.

Questions

Can I open a new Merchant Center account instead?

No. Google connects accounts that belong to the same business, and trying to get around a suspension with a new one falls under its circumventing systems policy — a harder suspension to come back from. Fix the store and ask for a review.

Why does Google not tell me what exactly is wrong?

The notice names the policy, not the page, so that it cannot be gamed. That is why the fix is an audit of the whole store rather than one change — and why a scan that checks everything at once saves reviews.

How long does a review take?

Google says usually 3 to 7 business days. You see the result in Merchant Center and by email.

I dropship. Is that a problem?

Dropshipping is allowed. Hiding it is what causes trouble: say where products ship from, give real delivery times, and make sure your returns policy works for products that come from a supplier.

Is a Gmail address enough on the contact page?

Google does not forbid it, but an email on your own domain is one more sign of an established business. When you are already suspended, give the reviewer every sign you can.