Hi Mark - nice to hear from you and good luck.
I had a very negative experience about 3 years ago with an agency that looks remarkably similar. I paid £155 for a portfolio for my daughter with lots of promises. Their client list was very very similar yet they worked for none of them. Having worked at the BBC myself for a short time, I know that a great deal of TV production companies will not give you any chance of a part unless you are a member of Equity yet this isn't mentionned.
I can't recommend highly enough that you check the company out beforehand and I do hope that they are all above board.
Check out this link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/south/series3/models_agency_scams.shtml
This was the agency that we used and all they did was introduce us to another agency, owned by the same people at the same address and they also wanted £100 at which poihnt we cut our losses.
There is a trade association mentionned at the end of the article where you can check out this agency beforehand.
Generally speaking, there were 17 year old girls there who you just had to look at to realise that they would never be a model yet they were being told that all was well and they could secure them some work - for the £150 of course. On reflection it was terrible what they were doing and they KNEW it, which is what made it worse.
Member of the Magic Circle & The 2009 British Isles Close-Up Magician of the Year
It's not really an optical illusion - it just looks like one!