A problem many users of Google Places face is having entries merged together at search time or an account Suspended because they do not understand the Business Guidelines.
Google regard any businesses which are in the same business area as one even if they are differently marketed and even separate legal entities.
I have had to merge 3 entries into 1 for a Taxi firm with Repairs, Spare Parts and Sales branches. Their account was Suspended.
Others find that two entries are being merged or randomly shown at search time and only one entry is having statistics posted.
You can have a listing for each business in the same area but they must be at clearly separate locations.
Where you do have businesses in clearly different areas then either add them one at a time to one account or establish separate email accounts to hold a Places account for each business.
Having a common word, family name say, in separate businesses may cause merge issues.
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