This is a bit of info for anyone who hasn't heard of Josh Hoopes.

He's been pulling the same scams for five years or more. He has many aliases and member names.  He poses as a client to scam artists out of artwork and he poses as an artist to scam clients out of money. He sometimes impersonates well known comic artists such as Art Adams. He generally makes advertisements seeking for comic book art or replies to ads by offering to provide comic book art.

The information below only took a few minutes to find and it is by no means complete. I'm posting it to warn clients and artists to be cautious when dealing with business partners online. Break large projects into smaller milestones and start with small payments to test the reliability of the other party. Be polite but careful. Establish a good web reputation by maintaining a website and profile for a long period of time. On DA, new profiles, profiles with hidden comments and hidden history or no galleries are reasons to be suspicious. a new gmail account is more suspicious than someone with a their own domain name, company email or at least a gmail that has been around for ten years so you can find some history on Google.

Here are some articles and threads about Josh Hoopes:
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aliases and suspected aliases:
rcdream on DeviantArt
inked56 on DeviantArt
crazypens on DeviantArt
andersartist on DeviantArt
ronrunstrom@ymail.com (as Ron Runstrom, linking to this portfolio) [link]
inked56@yahoo.com (as Joseph Jenkins, linking to this portfolio.) [link]
cinemagic87@yahoo.com (as John Martin)
magic_bella@yahoo.com
Robert Salinez(art-wise@hotmail.com)
Joshua De Lava, using same email as Robert Salinez(art-wise@hotmail.com)
Mike Roberts
John Anders
Jeff Henzel
joshua john


Address on record: (may not be current)
Josh Hoopes
3314 May Street
Sacramento, CA 95838