The best way to find a trustworthy SEO is by learning a bit about the industry.

The people who get ripped off are typically people who blindly bought services or bought from some telemarketer who contacted them before they learned anything about the industry.

• SEO Book - my blog and current book which keeps up with the search space.
• List of SEO Forums - discuss SEO with others working in the field.
• Free search engine optimization tools - tools that help you optimize your website
• Google vs Yahoo! vs MSN - see how their search relevancy algorithms compare
• Honest SEO - report about hiring a trustworthy SEO professional.
• SEO Consultants - directory of SEO professionals.
• Search Engine Strategies - a well known industry conference
• Pubcon - a well known industry conference

• Blue Hat SEO - creative blog sharing a ton of innovative spamming ideas.
• David Naylor - easily one of the top 3 search spammers in the world.
• Greg Boser - one of the most honest voices in search.
• SEO Black Hat - a fun blog about black hat SEO techniques by QuadsZilla.
• Syndic8 Black Hat SEO Blog - Earl from Gray's blog about black hat SEO. Also links off to a black hat SEO forum.
• IrishWonder - another black hat blogs from one of my good buddies.
• Black Hat Diary
• Fantomaster
• Seocracy

Black Hat SEO Forums

• SEO Black Hat Forums - paid forum discussing current black hat SEO techniques.

• Black Hat SEO directory - directory of products and services I generally don't recommend.
• About this site - see why I don't recommend most of the stuff I listed in this directory.
• What The HELL Is Search Spam? - explains why I don't like the phrase search spam.
• Bad SEO example page - example of a how to on formatting your content...but in a sorta how not to way :)