I had an email out of the blue from a guy who had completed his masters degree with honors in SEO and was looking for a small number of different trades that he could do SEO work for to impress future employers. Initially this work would be done for free. He promised to get me to the top of Google (brilliant! Could potentially increase my workload an awful lot). I emailed back saying I was interested and arranged a time for him to phone me. His name: Dave Riley, he rang and we went through things, he then requested £96 for the software he would hire from his uni that would be specific to my website and I could use whenever I needed it. He needed the money in a couple of days so that he could start. Now I am wondering is this a scam or genuine. So he gave me names of three firms he had helped to get to the top of Google. Anyway I rang a couple of these firms one said yeah he has done great job another said no he has done work for about 3 firms and taken £96 off loads of people and done nothing for it! They had had calls from over 100 people most saying no SEO work had been done. Informing me too that he is also known as Daniel Mathews. I have heard no more from him so hopefully trading standards have caught up with him. Beware!