Baltimore Ghost Tours has received eerie calls and reviews since 2021.

“We are trying to find out where this ghost tour is. Nobody’s answering the goddamn phone to let us know after we spent almost $100 for this tour,” one angry caller said.

From another: “I haven’t received any information on whether or not I got the tickets, or if the purchase was accepted or anything.”

The voicemails, reviewed by The Baltimore Banner, were from people looking for a Baltimore ghost tour — but not the Baltimore Ghost Tours business that Amy Lynwander and Melissa Rowell have run since 2001. The angry messages were meant for the Baltimore ghost tour that’s owned and operated by the national brand, US Ghost Adventures. Both hit the ghostly highlights of Fells Point.

Lynwander and Rowell aren’t the only locals being haunted by US Ghost Adventures. Mike Carter, who has owned Annapolis Tours and Crawls since 2002, says the national brand has also troubled his business in the capital city’s historic downtown. And the same thing may be happening in Frederick.

US Ghost Adventures operates ghost tours and pub crawls in more than 100 cities across the country and owns some high-profile spooky sites like the Lizzie Borden House, home of the infamous 1892 double killing in Fall River, Massachusetts.

But the way the company identifies and markets itself in some cities is so similar to that of longer-running local ghost tours that customers become confused and online reviews get blended and assigned incorrectly, owners say.

“We have to constantly put the message out there that we’re Baltimore Ghost Tours,” Rowell said. “Baltimoreghosttours.com is our URL, and we also have that as a trademark. But it doesn’t stop people from using it.”

US Ghost Adventures is owned by Lance Zaal, who describes himself on his website as a former Marine and an entrepreneur who enjoys “transforming ideas into reality.” He started his current tourism business in 2018 with Colonial Ghosts in Williamsburg, Virginia, and has expanded rapidly, reaching into Maryland roughly five years ago.

He has been met with pushback from existing tour companies over the years.

“There’s typically an operator that was already there and they get really upset that they have competition,” Zaal said. “They feel threatened and so they tend to lash out and attack the competition.”

Earlier this year, Carter noticed US Ghost Adventures’ presence in Annapolis and entered a standoff with the national brand. First it operated in Annapolis under the name Crabtown Ghosts, before changing it to Phantoms of Annapolis Ghost Tour and then Ghosts of Annapolis — all within months.

That’s too close for Carter’s comfort. His company previously used the name Annapolis Ghost Tours, which he started more than 20 years ago.

“They literally sneak in in the dead of night and do this,” Carter said.

Out of frustration, Carter said, he started posting complaints about Zaal and US Ghost Adventures on his company’s website in April. That website depicts tombstones of past competitors, including tour names that US Ghost Adventures has used.

Carter also created a website called USA Ghost Adventures to support local tour operations across the country.

A lawyer for US Ghost Adventures sent a letter to Carter claiming he was using “false and defamatory statements” and painting Zaal and the company as “a villain.”

The “market for guided tours is robust enough to handle multiple market participants,” according to the letter, reviewed by The Banner.

After the United Nations’ intellectual property agency ruled on Zaal’s complaint this fall, Carter’s USA Ghost Adventures website now redirects to Zaal’s US Ghost Adventures.

Local ghost tours, in Baltimore and other cities, want to stifle competition, Zaal said. Competition isn’t the problem, Rowell said, customer confusion is.

“I could care less if there’s competition; that’s the American way,” Rowell said. “They’re welcome to give ghost tours, give them all day, but don’t try to convince people that you’re us. That’s all I ask. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

Reviews for tours they didn’t do — they only have walking tours on Fridays and Saturdays — and for guides they didn’t hire, on top of the voicemails and emails they’ve received, prove to Rowell and Lynwander that something is amiss.

Under US Ghost Adventures’ control, the Google business page has Max’s Taphouse in Fells Point listed as the address for Baltimore Ghost Tours.

“We 100% never allowed them [US Ghost Adventures] to use our address,” said Gail Furman, co-owner of Max’s Taphouse.

Lynwander and Rowell’s tours also start near the entrance of the bar, but they’ve never used its address online.

The fight for control of the Google business pages triggered the mixing of reviews and other information between the national brand’s Baltimore offering and the longer-running local company’s.

Zaal said local companies have sought to remove US Ghost Adventures’ Google business listing altogether.

“They tried many times to take over and remove our Google business listing and it failed,” Zaal said.

Lynwander and Rowell have tried to get US Ghost Adventures to change the name of their Baltimore tour. The duo has owned the trademark for Baltimore Ghost Tours in Maryland and federally since 2007 and 2016, respectively.

Lynwander and Rowell, Furman of Max’s Taphouse and Baltimore City Councilman Zeke Cohen have appealed to Google — for almost a year — to get the search engine to stop associating Max’s and Baltimore Ghost Tours with the national brand.

Google even gave control of Baltimore Ghost Tours’ business page to US Ghost Adventures — a situation that ended just last week.

Similar customer- and online-confusion disputes between US Ghost Adventures and local ghost tour operators have erupted in Orlando, Florida; Phoenix; Providence, Rhode Island; Newport, Rhode Island; San Diego; and Austin, Texas, according to a report by The Herald News in Fall River, Massachusetts.

Zaal said search engine optimization, the practice of using specific keywords to help businesses and content rank higher on search pages, goes into the naming of his tours.

US Ghost Adventures also lists a tour in Frederick on its website. Maryland Heritage Tours has led historic district ghost tours in Frederick for 25 years. Ron Angleberger, the local tour operator, said he is aware that the national brand is in town.

Zaal’s strategy has been to deny claims from local business owners that he is infringing on their trademarks. Yet — in an ironic twist — last year he sued a business owner in Massachusetts for opening a coffee shop with a name he said was too similar to his Lizzie Borden House.

He bought the property in 2021, restored it and now uses it as a museum and bed-and-breakfast for overnight stays in one of America’s “most haunted houses.”

But when Miss Lizzie’s Coffee opened up next door, Zaal and US Ghost Adventures claimed Joseph Pereira, the coffee shop owner, was infringing on its trademark. A judge denied US Ghost Adventures’ request for a preliminary injunction, saying the name Lizzie refers to the story and not the business run by Zaal.

Zaal has filed an appeal.

For the Marylanders, Zaal’s legal tactic in Massachusetts seems awfully familiar.

“They’re just buying time and hoping that you get bored or run out of money because they know these are small, little companies owned by locals,” Carter said, “and they’re not big moneymakers.”