Just a quickie, buddy of mine had a really bad experience with
www.tannercreative.com . Paid them $100 upfront to make a website better than the one he already had, and despite the really cool flash and design on the tannercreative site, he decided to make little to no changes to what my friend had hacked together and give him a finished product on par with your typical 10th grade web project.
I guess the real lesson is, don't pay up front to people you don't know.