I've just been sent the most ridiculous email asking me to pay for advertising on a website. A number of searches were included in the email with claims that the site was so good that by using the key phrases it would come up first, second, third or fourth in Google. This was indeed true, but on digging a bit deeper I found that no-one had actually used the key phrases to search on Google, Yahoo or MSN in the past month. Anyone can come up first in search engine results if they optimise for a key phrase that no-one else uses, so if you get similar emails do a bit of digging first.
There are lots of scams when it comes to SEO and advertising. If someone asks you to pay for anything, research it ... then research it again!
Exactly, never reply to Emails marketing you any form of SEO... If the company was any good they wouldn't be contacting you, you would be contacting them after finding them ranked well for SEO terms in the SERP's. This is such good info i'm going to quote myself lol