Phone Number changes when Tag Manager is active

  • Resolved DA42

    (@troyw2015)


    2 years, 11 months ago

    Hi,

    I am experiencing a very strange phenomena wit a website I manage, where the phone number is being changed across the entire website, to an old phone number that no longer exists.

    This does not happen to everyone who views the website, only some and from what I can gather, it only happens in Google Chrome. Again, not to everyone though.

    Every link that contains the phone number is affected, the menu, the footer widget and any other text links on the website. In the backend the number is correct and starts with 1300. However on the front end it is a different number starting with 1800.

    When the issue first manifested 4 days ago I cleared my cache in chrome for last 24 hours and it did not fix the issue. Today I cleared all time cache and it has fixed the problem.
    This is great for me, but any other visitors will possibly see this 1800. I have two users in Brisbane and another in Melbourne Australia who are still seeing the wrong 1800 phone number. I dare say many others are too.

    I have removed caching plugin from website and purged on the server too.
    I have checked all the website code and the 1800 number does not exists anywhere in the website.
    I have disabled theme and all plugins and themes but issue persists. However, if I remove the Google Tag Manager snippet from Header.php file, the matter is resolved and the 1300 is shown every where as it should. As soon as I put the Google Tag Manager snippet back in the 1800 numbers returns across the entire website.

    Even stranger, when I refresh a page or change page, the phone numbers flash up for a split second, showing the correct phone number, but instantly updates to the wrong phone number.

    I have checked all of the associated Google accounts such as Tag Manager, Google My Business and Google Ads and none feature this 1800 number.
    The site has not been hacked and no one else is doing this for a prank. I know this because the phone number is correct across the backend of the website and no one else has access.

    I am at my wits end and the website owner is going crazy. What I am seeing does not seem possible, yet there it is. I have checked the DNS and all is how it should be.

    This does not show to everyone and seems to be isolated to Google Chrome (I think)

    Can anyone offer a solution or somewhere else I should look to find this bug.

    Thanks

    • This topic was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by DA42. Reason: wording error

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

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  • Thread Starter DA42

    (@troyw2015)

    2 years, 11 months ago

    Finally found the problem.
    By pure chance, someone from Google called about some Tag Manager issues we have been having.
    When I explained this problem he immediately knew what the issue was (which is very unusual from the Google Support team).

    At some stage in the past, someone in marketing had installed a ‘Google forwarding number’ in tag manager. This Tag tells the website to replace all of the 1300 numbers to an old obsolete phone number in the Google account somewhere.
    I deleted the google forwarding number tag in tag manager and the issue was resolved.

    Hope my 4 days of pain helps someone else out there!

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
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