Martin Lowery charges $5,000 for SEO– here’s what happened

Martin Lowery of Think Vertical Christian Consulting in Florence, Alabama charged Eric Skeldon $5,000 to build a website and handle SEO. Eric received no rankings, no traffic, no leads, and no proof that any SEO work was ever performed. After more than two years of follow-ups from me personally, from Eric, and from a third-party assistant service, Martin has refused to refund the money and has gone completely unresponsive.

This is a factual account of what happened, documented through emails, bounce-back notifications, and third-party outreach records spanning from early 2024 through the end of 2025. I am sharing this because I care about local business owners, and I have watched this same pattern destroy trust in our industry too many times.

Who Is Martin Lowery

Martin Lowery operates Think Vertical Christian Consulting, based at 137 Heather Lane, Unit-B, Florence, AL 35633. He markets himself as a Chief Marketing Officer and digital marketing consultant. His business email was martin@thinkvertical.cc and he also used martinlowery@alterdriven.com. As of late 2025, the thinkvertical.cc domain no longer exists. Emails to martin@thinkvertical.cc bounce with a DNS error stating the domain cannot be found.

Who Is Eric Skeldon

Eric Skeldon is the CEO of Kingdom Warriors Studios. He is a local business owner who came to me asking for help with SEO. As part of understanding his situation, I asked the same diagnostic question I ask everyone: what does your website rank for, and what did you pay for it?

Eric told me he had paid $5,000 to Martin Lowery to build a website and handle SEO. When I looked at the site, it did not rank for any meaningful keywords. There was no traffic, no visibility, and no evidence of any SEO outcomes.

The Full Timeline of What Happened

I asked Eric to explain what he received for the $5,000. I asked Martin for specifics: keyword rankings, traffic data, SEO reports, or any measurable outcomes. None were provided. Instead of answers, I received vague explanations about work being done without any proof.

By March 2024, I had already been following up with Martin for months. On March 30, 2024, I emailed Eric and CC’d Martin stating that another month had gone by and asking how long is patient enough to wait.

Martin responded the same day with a lengthy, combative email. Rather than addressing the $5,000 or providing evidence of SEO deliverables, he accused me of mocking him and claimed he was barely off a breathing tube following a car accident. He said he had been honest and had intentions of making things right, but he produced no rankings, no traffic data, and no SEO reports. He CC’d sr.williams@shunnarrah.com, which he presented as his attorney’s email address.

I responded empathetically that same morning, acknowledging his misfortunes and the accident. But I pointed out the facts: Eric and I had been incredibly patient, Martin was attacking the very people who tried to help him and who paid him money, and that the lack of SEO deliverables predated the accident. I noted that I was getting nothing out of helping chase this down, whether through the months of follow-up before the accident or the private coaching. I also mentioned that I knew Alexander Shunnarrah from a law conference where we were both speakers, so Martin was in good hands with that firm for his personal injury case, but that none of this changed the fact that Eric paid $5,000 and received nothing measurable in return.

18 Months of Silence

After that March 2024 exchange, Martin went completely silent. No follow-up. No refund. No explanation. No SEO deliverables. Nothing for 18 months.

On October 21, 2025, Eric Skeldon wrote back into the thread and stated it plainly: he just wanted the $5,000 back. He said he did not remember any mocking, that it had always been one excuse after another, and that he and I had been patient.

I replied on October 22, 2025 telling Eric and Martin that I was there to help however they saw fit, that I had promised Eric I would see this through, and that I am a man of my word.

Those emails bounced. Martin’s email at martin@thinkvertical.cc returned an “Address not found” error because the thinkvertical.cc domain no longer existed. The attorney email Martin had CC’d, sr.williams@shunnarrah.com, also bounced because that domain could not be found either.

Hiring a Third-Party Assistant to Track Martin Down

By November 2025, Boomerang flagged the thread for having no reply. On December 5, 2025, I sent a request to my FancyHands virtual assistant service with a simple instruction: chase down Martin.

I also emailed Eric that day and told him directly: the lawyer email that Martin copied bounces, that person might not work there anymore, and that no good lawyer would take on a small $5K case like this anyway, despite Martin’s reasons to duck, ignore Eric, or try to flip the situation and make himself the victim.

My assistant Phillip S. spent from December 7 through December 29, 2025 attempting to reach Martin Lowery. Phillip sent multiple emails, re-sent them, asked me for Martin’s phone number (which I did not have), searched for alternative contact information, and used additional credits to continue the search. Throughout more than three weeks of daily follow-ups, Phillip reported back the same thing every single time: there is no response.

Martin Lowery never responded. Not to me, not to Eric, not to my assistant, not to anyone.

What Martin’s Own Emails Reveal

Martin’s email domain, thinkvertical.cc, no longer exists. His alternate domain at alterdriven.com was also used. The attorney email he CC’d, sr.williams@shunnarrah.com, also bounces because that domain is dead. When someone who owes you $5,000 lets their own business domain expire and the attorney they referenced becomes unreachable, and they stop responding to all communication for over a year, that tells you everything you need to know about their intentions to make things right.

In his March 2024 email, Martin acknowledged the situation existed. He said he had intentions of continuing to make things right. He said he would not be communicating at all if he did not intend to fix it. Then he disappeared entirely.

The Core Question That Was Never Answered

What exactly was delivered for $5,000?

At no point in this entire two-year timeline were keyword rankings, traffic data, or SEO reports produced. The conversation shifted from SEO results to explanations about timing, then to a health issue, then to tone and feelings, and then to complete silence. The original question was never answered because there was nothing to show.

This is the pattern I see over and over when I perform SEO audits for local service businesses. Someone pays thousands of dollars, receives a website that ranks for nothing, and the provider either disappears, makes excuses, or shifts blame. Eric is not the only business owner this has happened to. I wrote about this same pattern in Is Your Marketing Agency Scamming You, and the stories are remarkably similar every time.

What Local Business Owners Should Learn From This

If you are a local service business owner considering hiring someone for a website or SEO, ask hard questions before the money changes hands and demand proof after it does. Ask what keywords you will rank for. Ask how success will be measured. Ask what reports you will receive and how often. Never accept vague assurances about work being done. Never confuse niceness, confidence, or a good pitch with competence.

The Digital Plumbing framework exists specifically for this reason. Before any SEO or advertising can work, the technical foundation has to be verified: is the website properly set up, are analytics tracking correctly, are the business listings accurate, is the content structured for the keywords you want to rank for? If someone cannot walk you through these basics, they should not be handling your SEO.

Good intentions do not pay your bills. Results do. And when someone takes $5,000 from a local business owner, produces no measurable results, and then vanishes for over a year while letting their own business domain expire, that is not a misunderstanding. That is a pattern.

What Happens Next

Eric Skeldon is owed $5,000 by Martin Lowery. That has been true since the beginning of this situation and it remains true today. I promised Eric I would see this through, and I keep my promises. If Martin Lowery wants to make this right, he knows how to reach us. If he chooses to continue ignoring this, then this article will serve as a permanent, factual record of what happened so that the next business owner who considers hiring him can make an informed decision.

I have seen too many good local service business owners lose serious money this way. If you want to understand how to evaluate whether your current SEO provider is actually delivering results, start with our SEO audit process and check whether your digital plumbing is properly set up. Those two steps alone will tell you whether what you are paying for is real.

This article connects to BlitzMetrics processes including SEO audit, Digital Plumbing, and the SEO Tree. Each of these concepts has a definitive article that explains the full framework.