Is CTR manipulation still working for local map rankings?

People use automated tools or micro-workers to search business names and click map listings. Does CTR manipulation give fast local ranking gains today, or does Google spot bad traffic?

i still see people testing it, but i wouldn't expect ctr manipulation alone to give consistent fast ranking gains these days. google has way more signals to look at than just clicks, so low quality or obviously artificial traffic can easily become noise instead of a ranking boost. imo it's better used as a small part of a bigger local seo setup rather than relying on it as the main strategy.

maybe it can move things temporarily but i'd more worried about whether the gains actually stick.