Ugh, here we go again...
Since I'm getting called out by name here, I should probably respond. Let me clarify a few things.
1) I don't recommend or endorse Josh in anyway at this point. The last time he created art for me personally, I believe, was in 2008 on Aliens DS. That art was great, and I had no issues with him. But as I keep saying, I've never paid him upfront.
2) Since then, it looks like he's worked on a few projects for WayForward. This wouldn't surprise me. We have done a lot of pixel games, and there are a lot of directors at the company, several of whom know Josh and have worked with him before. I wasn't aware that he worked on the Transformers game, but it wouldn't surprise me. Since my company never pays artists before the work is done, there wouldn't be an opportunity for him to scam us.
3) Apologies to anyone who gets scammed by this guy. The whole situation is very sad. Some people seem to want Josh to stop using WayForward as a reference to get more work. Well first, I have no control over what he posts in his profiles. Second, even though it appears he is still actively ripping people off, if he did work for my company recently and there were no problems, then I don't see how that reference on his resume would be invalid. If it were up to me, he would not be citing us. But I have no control over that, and I'm not the last person he worked with at this company, so there's unfortunately not much I can do.
4) As I keep saying, never pay artists before the work is done. Obviously Josh is using the system to scam people constantly, but if it wasn't him, someone else will scam you. Don't pay artists before the work is done and you will not get ripped off. If they tell you they need to be paid upfront, that is unusual and unprofessional, and you should move on to the next artist.
5) If someone got scammed by him, they should by all means report him to the authorities. It's going to be difficult to prove that stuff, because unless you have contracts, or unless it was very formal how you went about things, I imagine it will be pretty difficult to lay blame on him. He can always just say that he's running behind and was still working on the art. But please feel free to try. If this is something Josh is still doing to this day, there should be consequences for his actions.
6) I'm going to talk to my bosses at the company, let them know what's going on, and recommend that we don't use him for any future projects.
EDIT: I just saw Josh's LinkedIn profile. It makes it sound like he currently works for WayForward. He does not. To my knowledge, the last project he worked with us on was Transformers 3DS in 2013. I've asked him to update his profile to reflect this.