My father was contacted by TouchLocal yesterday, who tried selling an enhanced listing to his FREE touchlocal account.

What the gentleman said to us on the phone disturbed me so much I ended up contacting Google about it, who in turn asked me to fax their legal department.

They were claiming that they were friends with Google and buy keywords direct from Google themselves (this is not Adwords - he said), I told him that Google do not have favourites and I very much doubt they are affiliated with Google, Google did not know who they were!

I would like to warn people away from TouchLocal because of the underhand sales tactics they are using.

Why lie? They have a good service they offer customers so why do they need to lie in their pitch and claim to know Google personally and that Google personally tell them what keywords should be allocated to a website to make it number 1.

In fact, the keyword they suggested we needed to use was “executive private hire hampshire” they wanted 10GBPs per week to get this keyword to the number 1 spot - guess what? This keyword is already at the number 1 & 2 spots on Google but was done organically, without paying 1 cent to anyone!!!

So, be wary of TouchLocal and I would take anything they try telling you with a pinch of salt, it is basically all a load of old bull!!