On Friday afternoon, I reported My Google Favorite Place Decal Was Hijacked. In short, it turned out the QR code was indeed correct, but if the QR code scanner reads it wrong, it can take you to a different business. Which is what happens when I use certain scanners or if the lighting is poor when I scan using certain apps.

Here is a quick video of how this went down on Friday afternoon:

Now, I am not the only one experiencing these problems. I have spotted at least four threads (I know there are more) with complaints about their QR codes not working.

Let me pull out the various complaints from the four Google Maps Help threads I found:

When I had my issue, Ryan Hayward from Google contacted me immediately. I learned from him that in my case, it was not a data issue on Google’s side, but rather an issue with the scanner reading the code incorrectly or missing pieces of the code. From what I understand, the code itself stores data in it, such as addresses, URLs, names and so on. So technically, I do not think Google printed these codes with a specific unique identifier in them for your business to match up in the Google Local Business Center. I think Google printed these codes to have address information and that is all. I can be wrong, but I think this is how it is working.

The overall issue here is that the codes are not working for many many businesses and searchers. It doesn’t matter if it is a Google bug or a scanner bug, it is not working for a lot of people and lot of the time.

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help threads.

Update: Ryan from Google sent me a note that many of this complaints are due to a QuickMark bug in their latest release. QuickMark sent an update to Apple and they hope it is approved soon. QuickMark wrote about the bug over here.

Ryan added:

Update 12/22/2009: QuickMark’s update is now available for download in the iTunes App Store. It fixed the issues for me.