I am looking for Joshua Astorian.

[BobBaker92]

I have his MSN but no response ever comes of trying to chat with him.  He has stolen my $300 down payment for a project and refuses to either do any work for it, or refund my money.  I have tried numerous times to get ahold of him with no luck. Does anyone have any more contact information for him? I gave him over a month to complete even one sprite, and nothing was ever done.

Thanks for anyone who can help.

[Indigo]

see this thread:  http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=8561.0

Moderators are currently staying out of the business affairs between artists and employers, but I will mention it again in the Mod forum.

[BobBaker92]

Thanks, interesting read.  I see I am not the only one who has been taken advantage of.  I wonder if any of those guys ever got their money back from him.  Even if I can't get any of my money back, I would at least like to make sure that he can't find another job to rip of another programmer.  I don't want to come across as mean, or insensitive about his story, but losing $300 was a huge setback for me in my game developement, and I wasn't able to hire another artist to finish my project and I lost my sponsorship, which upset me a great deal.  When I tried reversing the payment on paypal he pleaded with me to stop the inquiry and he would finish the artwork quickly, after I reversed it(stupid of me) he again started ignoring me. It has been going on like this for over 3 months. Every time I see him online on MSN I send a message but he never responds.

[Indigo]

You are by no means the first person to have lost contact with Josh after paying him upfront.  By my count, this has happened about 6 times that I know of on this board. Some of those times employers were able to get their work from him after making a post such as this.  Hopefully you will be as lucky.  Artists like to keep their reputations on the forums.