Where to look for programming help

[cozumel]

My decision as to whether to migrate to VBulletin will, in part, be based upon being reassured that I can find someone excellent to help me with my data migration from DC Forum. I look at the various forums and messages and I am not seeing any Available for Work postings there of the type I would need, for example. Hence the question.

The scenario I am trying to avoid is plunking down the moolah for the Vbulletin software -- which looks very good, by the way. Plunking down the money to have it configged and loaded to my server by the VBulletin people. But then I am left holding the bag because VBulletin's staff doesn't offer the migration service at any price. (Leading me perhaps erronously, to believe that it may not be all that simple of a task??)


So here I would sit, having paid out my license fee and my installation fee. Nearly $300 in the hole. But now I can't find someone excellent and reliable who will help me with the most key task of migrating my messages and user info from the older board which goes back 7 years. And without that piece of the job, the entire plan is useless and I've wasted my money.

Can you assure me, since you appear to work for the company, that I will have no problem finding a reliable programmer to do this ImpEx migration job for me once I've ordered your software? I think this is a question that will interest a lot of other potential customers as well and perhaps I need to drill down and look for that answer in back messages??

Or is there another area of the forums, for example, that I don't get to see yet because I'm not a license-holder? A place where all the hot shots who can do something like this while they're watching tv, listening to music and eating spaghetti at the same hang out? I didn't find any php/mysql freelancers looking for work in the first three pages of the Marketplace forum, for example.

To summarize, I'm not trying to actually connect with a freelancer just yet. But I would like to know beyond any shadow of a doubt that some are going to be easily available for this specific job. Because it sounds like there are a lot of glitches and I needs someone who has done it before..