Loyal 9

If I could give Loyal 9 a minus 10, I would. I feel like a fool for signing up with them, only to find out I was «taken». My fast-​talking salesman was Scott Straight, if you believe the name, and he’s the Director of Marketing. I only realized what a flake he was when he called me with his pitch after I was already a customer and had been suckered out of $ 499. I hope future «customers» check Unilocal before taking the bait. Advice for those who need Google verification: go to
and find one that way.

This sorry excuse for a company is just a bunch of scammers and liars. They just say whatever’s convenient for them. Hope karma hits these flakes hard! Preying on small business owners is about as low as you can get! All seriousness though watch out and save yourself the aggravation!

This company is one of the worst kind of deceitful «wanna-​be scam artist» operations. They attempt to prey on small businesses in one of the worst ways. The other reviewers here have outlined the Loyal 9 tactics, and I concur wholeheartedly. Loyal 9 is in no way affiliated with Google, and have no authority to do anything except that which they attempt to scam the small business owner into giving them permission to execute.
They used an unverifiable phone number when they called me, thus concealing their true identity from caller ID. They attempted to close a transaction for their «services» over the phone with me during a simultaneous live online web meeting, and the «supervisor» who used every hard close sales technique absolutely refused to give me contact information when I insisted on not purchasing their services at that time without having time to think over all of the details. The biggest foundation of the Loyal 9 business model is that «A fool and his money are soon parted.» Thomas Tusser.

I agree with the other reviewer. This company is a total scam. First of all, when I asked what was the name of the company, the lady hung up on me. They try to play on your fear that you won’t be listed on google and say that they are «google ad certified,» whatever that means…
The second phone call, which always begins with an official sounding recording saying that google has been trying to reach me, stated that a representative is trying to get a hold of me.
This last guy who just called was extremely condescending. «Do you understand that your listing will be removed from google if you don’t pay $ 299 for our services?» What a load of crap. I got his company’s number and it is: (888) 565‑7461. We need to report this company to the Better Business Bureau. They try to play on fear and bully you into purchasing their «services.»
Be wary of «Loyal 9 certified.» It is a scam!!!

This isn’t a legitimate marketing company; it’s a scammer who claims falsely to be Google, and tells people they have to pay or Google will take their listing down. Don’t listen… it isn’t true.
A representative called me, claiming to be from Google and informing me that if I did not verify (with them; no mention was made of any other type of verification) my Google Business account, my listing would be removed and my business would not appear on any Google search. They asked for routine verification information, which I gave. They then also demanded a fee of $ 299 «for a basic listing, without your website attached,» or $ 349 for a listing with my website attached. The representative clearly stated that, if I did not pay this fee, my listing would be removed from Google and would not show up on any search; and they at least heavily implied that Google — not a third party marketing company — was the one demanding and receiving the fee.
When I told them I’d need to get their phone number from Google’s website and call them back, a routine precaution against scammers, they admitted that their company was called Loyal9, but claimed to be representing Google. They urged me to look up their website «and you’ll see Google’s name right at the top of the client list on the first page.» (I did look it up; all that’s there is a large Google logo and a statement that they’re «Google Adwords Certified,» whatever that means. There’s no client list.)
At that time I also looked up two other pages: the BBB report on Loyal 9, and Google Business’ verification page. On the Google page, I found out that although Google does request verification, it does NOT require any form of payment for doing so. On the BBB report, I found a long history of complaints, most of which had to do with exactly the behavior I’d experienced: misrepresenting themselves as being from Google, or outsourced by Google to collect fees on their behalf; falsely stating or implying that the client’s Google listing would be removed if they didn’t pay; as well as failure to provide any service whatsoever if the client actually paid.
I informed the agent of what I was seeing on the BBB page and they hastily said, «Let me pass you to my supervisor.» The supervisor duly came on the line. He began talking very fast against the BBB complaints, saying that everyone knows that nobody talks about the good experiences, only the bad ones. He said his bank had 247 BBB complaints and yet he’d still be making his deposit there the next day. I asked him why the agent had represented herself as being from Google, and he said that she would have read a script at the end of the call, *AFTER* I’d given them my money, which said who they really were. I told him I had learned from Google’s website that it was not necessary to pay anything in order to verify one’s listing, and he started backtracking on that, too; insisting that the charge was for «actively maintaining» the listing. I could not get anything out of him about what «actively maintaining» involved, other than monitoring it from time to time to ensure that all was well.
In the end, he blamed the entire experience on the agent, whom he claimed was new and badly trained. He demanded I admit that *he* had been honest with me… the truth was more that he admitted to things I already knew, once I told him I knew them from third parties. He never gave me any honest information I had not already found for myself.
I later looked up more details of the BBB complaints against this business, and found out that they have a consistent pattern of representing themselves as Google, claiming that the payment is necessary or one’s listing will be removed, and then blaming both false statements on new and poorly trained agents if anyone catches them in the falsehoods.