I often am asked "what do you think about..." and other similar types of questions. One that was particularly interesting was a presentation to a group of independent salespeople about web marketing. The claim in the meeting was "we can get your web page to the top of Google" and most of the salespeople left the meeting having signed up on the thought of being on top.
I had to wonder. Since the salespeople were all wanting to be on top - and most of them live in the same place, have the same type of businesses and want the same keywords, how was this company going to get their pages all to be the top listing - guaranteed?
The answer is that they cannot do it for those common "normally" looked up keywords. The marketers have to separate the keywords and choose something significantly different, such as the client's name or the client's slogan. You just can't have everyone on the top listing at the same time for the same thing. (And, if they promised they could do just that, it would mean that they would have to bump the previous client that was at the top - a client that had paid and now was going to have to pay again [... and again...])
If the web promoter used the client's name, most often than not, they were already at the top to begin with. Nine out of ten names out of some of the attendees of the meeting, I found this to be the case already.
I don't think that all internet marketing is a scam - internet marketing takes careful design and implementation and definitely some hefty work to get right.
The only way to beat the scams is to ask questions and research. Make the scammers work so hard that it isn't worth their time, or your money.