Mr Pyatt did manage to update "open" status, but it took days to get reflected. (Representative pic)
An Australia-based restaurant owner named Chris Pyatt has told ABC Australia that Apple Maps was showcasing his restaurant as "permanently closed" and it has cost him business. Speaking to the outlet, Mr Pyatt, who owns a Thai restaurant called Pum's Kitchen, said he isn't sure when Apple Maps started displaying the "permanently closed" label. But he claimed that it certainly cost him footfall in the restaurant and business. He mentioned that he's seen a "significant downturn" in the money it makes by about AUD 12,000 (over Rs 6 lakh).
"We have no idea when this change went through. But we have seen a sudden and drastic change in customer behaviour towards the end of November and all of December. We've noted a significant downturn, of around $12,000," Mr Pyatt told ABC Australia.
It was only when a regular customer called to ask why he had shut his restaurant that Mr Pyatt found out his small business had been listed as "permanently closed" on Apple Maps. He revealed that he and his wife Pum have been running the Thai restaurant Pum's Kitchen on Queensland's Sunshine Coast for nearly a decade. However, as neither of them owns an Apple product, they did not see the Apple Maps issue until Mr Pyatt was asked by a regular customer why the restaurant had shut down.
Mr Pyatt said he spoke to an Apple customer service representative, who reportedly told him they couldn't assist with his inquiry because he's not an Apple customer. He was instead told that he had to submit feedback online, but he received an automated message once he did that.
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Mr Pyatt did manage to update the "open" status, but it took days to get reflected in the Apple Maps app, he said. The restaurant owner also revealed that the non-closure wasn't the only problem as they also said the location of the eatery was incorrect.
"We lost one customer [this week] because they called us to check the location, then stated they were using Apple Maps and didn't turn up," Mr Pyatt said. He insisted that Apple should've checked before setting the listing for the business as closed.
"It's not right to close any online presence. If you have a particular company which is precluding you from being able to access information about yourself, or your business, that's quite a scary situation to me," he said.