Web marketing emails – are they scams?

A lot of our clients have been calling and emailing us recently after being approached by web marketing companies offering them the world at a reasonable cost.  Offers include getting you to a number one position in Google – guaranteed.  Google AdWords set up and management, again promising the earth at a low cost.   The problem with this is that to start you cannot guarantee anyone a number one position in the organic/natural listings in Google, to guarantee this you would have to use AdWords.  The AdWords offers may be somewhat legit but you MUST read the small print.  I dont want to tar everyone with the same brush but I would be wary.

One client in particular is about €1000 out of pocket.  A company in the UK contacted them with such an offer, the client only wanted the AdWords campaign to run for 3 months but on the invoice there was small print saying that the campaign will run for 12 months unless they state in writing within 30 days that they do not want this.  They missed this notice and as a result more money was deducted from their credit card.  When they called to complain the company played back the telephone conversation and they did explain it in the original conversation but not clearly enough.  The AdWords campaign runs badly, they will not provide any believeble reports (AdWords can auto generate reports but the company are generating their own and putting the figures in excel), they are only targeting 4 key phrases, more will cost an additional 15pound per phrase, they will not give them access to their account …… the list goes on.  You do get what you pay for so be wary.

Have you had any experience with this (good or bad)?