From my understanding and research, Being able to claim a google place for a business means that you have to have the buissness phone that is registerd with that Place in order to claim it. Also, you have to wait like a month in order for google to ship you a postcard with a code to activate it.

Selling this as a service to offline businesses is dead now right?

How difficult is SEO for google places?

to rank is easy, to claim..yeah its need sometimes, back in the day, g00gle use phone verification very fast..right after you submit the phone, they will call and tell you the pin number. if you need google places optimization, shoot me a pm.