I've been ripped off by an artist in the past (it wasn't a pixel artist, but the same rule applies), so I can sympathise with Trentg here. I don't know what your original post said, but I think "con artist" is a strong term, and if you used that, I can understand why they deleted it. Even online, you have to be careful of making those kind of accusations.

Having said that, I don't find the counter arguments to his suggestion all that convincing. Sure, a bad employer could potentially make being employed again difficult - but then the reverse is also true. Would you work for an employer with a bad review? You wouldn't, would you? So why would an employer want to hire a bad empoyee? You can't gauge from someone's artwork whether or not they're going to go AWOL once you've handed over your half of the money.

No names will be mentioned, both for legal reasons and because I don't want to start a potential flame war, but the person I employed, for instance, had quite an impressive resume (a reason I employed him). Nothing for weeks. I got plenty of excuses as to why I wasn't getting anything, but the first red flag was when I offered to beta test a game for a colleague - and found this guy's name in the credits. This was about 6 months after I'd paid him to do work for me. The second was when he claimed he was short of time (but seemed to have pleny of time to update his blog). Then he wouldn't respond to my emails - not even to demands that he returned my money. I don't know what happened there. I certainly hadn't done anything to offend him up until that point.

I gave up after 18 months and hired someone else instead (who completed the work two weeks later without excuse.)

So yes, Zoggle's idea for some sort of moderated rating system sounds like a good one.

you can't ask an employer for references

What...?