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I just received an interesting email about paintedfigs.com, the claims in it are pretty serious.

I'm only posting this because when the DE were released I ordered allot of models from paintedfigs, it however took over 6months before the models arrived. People on podcasts have also mentioned it taking forever before they receive their models. Now this popped up so I'd like to know what you guys think.

I have no idea what's going on, if their site got hacked or something since the article is posted on their own site.

http://www.discountfigs.com/

Emailed them today and got this reply, sounds reasonable to me.

Good Morning Daniel,

Navin here, thanks for your email.

I'm sorry but your email address was appropriated during the period that I was talking to Raef about in the interview he does with me here:

http://www.payloadz.com/d1/freeproducts.asp?id=1531825

Discountfigs was stolen from me during this same period, which is discussed in the interview as well.

Journalists turn up when you google them, if you look up M.E. Shenny you will find no evidence that he actually exists. Journalists also don't send out mass emails from sites, that are clearly not news sites.

Our lawyer advises I just ignore this nonsense and carry on, and given that the email lies in its opening line, I'm inclined to agree with him.

I'm sorry you've been getting unsolicited emails, you'll like get more from that source.

Regards,

Navin

Don't do it MCC... holy crow that is a hell of a situation...

Never knew Neal from warstore was so badass. Might start buying from him again.

Wow.

sneaking suspicion that this isn't legit.

...no matter how bad a business is failing no owner would say those sort of things in an interview. I call BS.

ps. (I have been wrong before)

Is there a summary for people who don't want to read that wall of text?

Kroothawk wrote:Is there a summary for people who don't want to read that wall of text?

It's laid out better on the site itself.

That said, I'm a bit skeptical. The whole thing seems a bit fishy.

Kroothawk wrote:Is there a summary for people who don't want to read that wall of text?

Summary is basically this: A person who says his/her name is M.E.Shenny has an interest in gaming and is a journalist, heard an interview with Navin (person who runs paintedfigs.com) on the podcast D6Generation (Where I myself heard about the site as they had advertisements on the show and this is why I tried them out with my Dark Eldar) about the problems paintedfigs have been having. I took over 6 months for me to receive my models and I've heard people on other podcasts say the same thing that they haven't received their models yet or it took half a year or more. Shenny decided to investigate this and claims to have found proof Navin is committing fraud, money laundry and generally just wants to stuff his own pockets with the companies money.


The thing I find strange is that paintedfigs and discountfigs used to be the same site, one was for selling models and the other for accepting commission jobs. I get the impression discountfigs have been hacked or something, perhaps by a disgrunted ex-employee but then again I had huge delays with my order and I only ordered boxes, not painted models. I honestly dont know what's going on but I figured this was news as there might be people who were considering using them to buy models (I was planning on using them for my Necron 2nd wave order but after reading this I'm not so sure any more.)



Short version? Shenny claims Navin is running an illegal business where the customers suffer months of waiting before they receive their models whilst Navin gives himself a $5000 a month wage that he uses to live a frivolous lifestyle (links to his facebook page stating that's proof but I dont see how that can be considered).


Only thing I can personally say though is that perhaps it'd be best to wait or chose someone else if you want to buy models or commission a painting company.

Yeah, I'll call disgruntled somebody posting nonsense on this one.

I bought from paintedfigs a year or so ago and had no problems with them.

There's a huge amount of BS in this.

No one is going to say these things to a journalist in the first place.

And some of it is downright slanderous (libelous? I get them confused), when he claims other people falsified documents, helped launder money, etc.

I think I could believe this

First, I am a former paintedfigs customer. I say former because it has been several years since I used them. I had two armies painted by them and was very satisfied with the service. However, I periodically have checked out their ongoing work and website(s) since then.

What I know is sometime after I used paintedfigs they started making changes both in response to changes in the market and apparently as part of attempts to grow the buisness. You can see some of the details and the timeline in the news section of paintedfigs http://www.paintedfigs.com/news. Sometime after these changes rumors started that they were starting to run way behind. Then Navin sent the following two e-mails his e-mail list subscribers,

1st E-mail dated 5/8/11

Navin here, hope you are well.

For many months now, we have been working with a consultant who has urged us to chase sales to fund our growth, rather than focusing on client satisfaction and quality. I recently came to the conclusion that this was a really, really, bad idea. We fired the consultant two weeks ago, and have returned to basics. Here is how this affects you.

Painting Caps
We are now capping our painting sales at 20% under our normal painting capacity. Between that and overtime output, we should have most (most!) delay issues sorted in a couple of months. We will also continue to cap our sales at 20% less than our capacity -- an order should ship back out in weeks not months, and there is really no point in quality and price advantages if the service is poor.

We are starting to get close to our cap for this month though, so you may want to pop us an email sooner rather than later if you are considering a project. If your order comes in after the cap is reached, we will not collect funds or otherwise work on it, till after the first week of June.

End to Discount Clubs
All these have done is create lots of badly underfunded projects. Anyone who has a club membership will of course keep those benefits till their year is up, but we will not be renewing memberships as they have caused a direct impact on the quality of customer service and attention to orders, for all clients.

Pacing Discount
Rather than 40 day turn around from when minis reach the studio, realistically we are now closer to 60 days. As such, we are offering 10% off on painting on orders, till we can get this down to a 40 day turnaround. This is only fair given that 10% off is what we offered before for 60 day turnaround, our "economy pace." Once turnaround has improved, we will get rid of this discount.

Improved Shipping
Many of you who have been drumming your fingers wondering why your minis are taking so long in the mail, are going to find these in your boxes in the next couple of weeks. Firing expensive consultants who costs thousands of dollars and don't deliver, mean there is no suddenly cash to send you all your goodies. There is a small shipping backlog (the post office will only let us send so many boxes a day as we fill up their mail bags and no one else can get any mail in) but by the end of this month we should have boxes out the door within 3 business days of client approval to pack and ship.

No More Forced Email Registration
You are no longer being forced to register for our email list in order to see our prices. Here are our prices:

http://www.paintedfigs.com/prices.html (please scroll below the guarantee graphic)

They will always be here.

We are adding Malifaux, Privateer Press, Spartan Games, and Anima Tactics over the coming days.

No More Hidden Charges: Pre-Calculated Shipping
You'll notice from the new spreadsheets online, that shipping costs are now pre-calculated. The default setting is 15% of the order value. You can now tell in advance what your total costs are going to be, before having to spend a penny.

"Rolling" Shipping
We are no longer going to be holding up large orders while waiting for a handful of hard-to-paint minis to get done, or straggler minis to arrive. All large orders will be broken into batches, and clients will receive the work in batches. This way, you are not sitting around waiting for months for your army to come in because an Empire Priest is stuck in customs.

Summary
We can do quality and we can do price, but our recent exercise in building PaintedFigs into a large company has been nothing more than an exercise in greed and has hurt clients, staff, and myself. I have paid the price for this and have no one to blame but myself. Now, I want to focus on service. The consultant did teach us many valuable lessons on how to run a company efficiently and better manage costs, and with these we are much more robust and capable company than we ever were.

Today though, we are also a lot more humble.

Thank you for all your support over the years.

Regards,

Navin

E-mail dated 6/8/11

Navin here, hope you are well.

Thank you all for your emails to me last month. I was not expecting so many supportive, kind, and helpful words. It made my day, and then it made my month. A lot of new work came in last month. We took care of a lot of delayed shipping, hired three new painters, and started placing large miniatures orders with our suppliers again. The studio is looking less neglected as well, and more like the kind of place that get's serious work done.

What I also didn't see coming last month (and really should have) was that my relationship with the staff transformed as well. The painters are all commission workers, they get paid mostly based on their output. Most of them had become grumpy, a bit surly, and absenteeism was starting to become a problem.

Now, they seem much happier at work: there's a lot more smiling, people are coming in on time and not missing days, and they're taking better care of their workspace. We have hard metrics too - staff salaries went up 50 to 100%. They became happier, and then suddenly became alarmingly productive. We instituted an employee of the month program and immediate cash bonuses to the most productive worker each day, and this helped. What also helped I think was me just being there; we planned and managed orders better; and the staff know I don't see them anymore as distractions.

I have a man who underperformed for 3 months running. I was going to sack him. In May, he was employee of the month.

All I had to do, was ask.

We held steady this month at a 60 day turnaround, but now I expect this to start coming down. Between increased staff output, the painting order cap, things were highly manageable last month. I expect painter output to go up this month, and for this to decrease the turnaround time. The target for this month is to get it down to a 50 day turnaround. If we can do that, then we want to push for 40 days the month after.

Thank you all for your support, and God Bless you.

Finally, not too long after the interview with Raef Granger was posted Navin posted to his blog, http://www.paintedfigs.com/blog , which was posted before this "article" posted by the OP was posted. FYI, you will need to scroll down a little bit to see the blog post that relates to the "article".

Needless to say, based on my personal experience, recollection of the events as they occurred, and accounts previously shared it appears that what is claimed to be an "article" is an attempt by someone to actively discourage current and potential customers from using paintedfigs. The "article" is potentially slanderous since the point of it is to do harm to the professional image and makes claims that are potentially libelous (accusations that the laws of various countries was and is being broken) and that any customer who continues to use paintedfigs are themselves law breakers since they are aiding and abetting.

Of course if it is posted in the interwebs, it must be true!!

p.s. sorry for the wall of text

@Lord of Deeds

I remember getting those e-mails as well and at the time I just thought "ok...." and moved on. Based upon this current e-mail nonsense, I would guess that this "journalist" is the fired consultant with a grudge.

The biggest red flag for me is that an alleged legitimate journal quotes a Harvard educated business man misusing the word "new" for "knew."

"The only money I new got stolen was about $3000..." There are so many things wrong with this phrase...it would have never made it past any sort of professional editing.

This is clearly a grudge.

Allot of this seems really odd, especially these statements, I'm guessing they are from an interview or something but who in their right mind would say something like this?

Navin Weeraratne: I get so angry at the march or retardedness, I actually grabbed a builder by the scruff of his shirt.

Navin Weeraratne: The accounts don't show a 3K dividend I paid myself and about another 1K I wasted. My goal is 5k a month in my pocket, for not a lot of work. Whatever happens beyond this, I don't care.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Emailed them today and got this reply, sounds reasonable to me.

Good Morning Daniel,

Navin here, thanks for your email.

I'm sorry but your email address was appropriated during the period that I was talking to Raef about in the interview he does with me here:

http://www.payloadz.com/d1/freeproducts.asp?id=1531825

Discountfigs was stolen from me during this same period, which is discussed in the interview as well.

Journalists turn up when you google them, if you look up M.E. Shenny you will find no evidence that he actually exists. Journalists also don't send out mass emails from sites, that are clearly not news sites.

Our lawyer advises I just ignore this nonsense and carry on, and given that the email lies in its opening line, I'm inclined to agree with him.

I'm sorry you've been getting unsolicited emails, you'll like get more from that source.

Regards,

Navin

I contacted http://www.discountfigs.com/ and asked them could I see the emails they say Navin sent.

They sent them over to me. From what I can see they seem to be internal discussions the site has got hold of and thats why Navin is being rather forthcoming in them.

There are indeed emails Navin sent that confirm the things said, which I don't think he ever thoght would be made public.

I couldnt believe what I was reading, I suggest you contact them yourself and ask.

Further they say Navin was given an opportunity to answer prior to publication and he refused, they stand by their claims and if Navin wishes to sue for libel he is welcome.

From what I read in those emails he sent he would loose!

Real or fake, don't care.

I wouldn't send my minis off to Sri Lanka to be painted over a several month period!

Karazy!

Yeah I just saw the whole "send your models to the third world" part. I can't even get UK bitz suppliers to send me stuff without it getting lost, let alone some country like Sri Lanka. Add to that the months long wait? No thanks.

Also, anyone who has a single post and registered that same day, claiming anything, can't be taken as truth. I tend not to trust the opinions of newer people on the forum.

A business person that want's to make money? That's a surprise? I think it wouldn't matter if this guy was the anti-christ. If folks are unhappy with his service/pricing they wouldn't give him there $ anymore.

This all seems rather dubious.

So far the only supporter of this shady non-sense is a brand new user? I call "shenanigans."

ender502

Orcman - Interesting, when I go to the link all I get is the page that is in dispute. There is no contact info for painted figs so I don't see how you got hold of them.
Also, why would Navin's company send out internal emails to a total stranger? Especially ones that would embarass them.
Sorry, but I'm not buying your story.

So someone who's committed several crimes...that can be linked to actual documents...that affects hundreds of customers...across the globe...Admitted all of this in an 'interview' on the internet.

Shenanigans indeed.

For a journalist, he sure misspelled several words.

Interesting.
When I Googled the name of the "journalist," a link to Urban Dictionary came up:

3. shenny 21 up, 11 down

a person who can never give up...

There are too many variables and loop holes there for me to simply nod my head and agree.

That said, there are other Asian painters, like Dragon Painting, that I'd use LONG before paintedfigs. Dragon Painting has a long and positive list of accomplishments and a proven track history of turning out high quality ARMIES in relatively short time frames.


Eric

This maybe libellous or in some ways just a disgruntled worker.

But you know what, there is no smoke without fire.

I could for certain see this as true.

ceorron wrote:

But you know what, there is no smoke without fire.

You know that's not true, either metaphorically or chemically, right?

Well... if you're uncertain, you can always not enter into any new transactions with these guys. Wait until everything pans out.

Leo_the_Rat - I meant I contacted http://www.discountfigs.com/ direct, their info is at the bottom of the page.

Anyway here are the Navin emails they sent...


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Raging at the Studio Again
From: "Navin Weeraratne" <navinstrategy@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, January 26, 2011 12:12 pm
To: "paul" <paul@vb-investment-group.co.uk>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Got so angry at the march or retardedness today, I actually grabbed a
builder by the scruff of his shirt.

We cannot fire the builders because two of them are supplying figures to
everyone else. We will need to train new builders, and then fire the old
ones.

So instead, I am now exiling myself from the studio again. I am now just
meeting once a day with Suraj in the mornings to QA painting and brief him
on what needs to be done, and I am leaving the studio for the rest of the
day there after. As long as I don't go to Singapore for a week, things
should work out.

N

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Fwd: RE: FW: Sri Lanka shipping info
From: navin@npdistributors.com
Date: Wed, January 19, 2011 8:21 pm
To: paul@vb-investment-group.co.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

This changes nothing. Still cheaper, faster, and easier to buy from the
US. The UK just cannot compete on shipping.

I want to switch back to the warstore, GW and IMD have wasted enough of my
time and money.

N


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: FW: Sri Lanka shipping info
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2011 12:24:10 -0000
From: "Yannis Krommydas" <Yannis.Krommydas@games-workshop.co.uk>
To: <paul@vb-investment-group.co.uk>

Hello Paul .

I sent you the shipping costs as an indication for both side to manage
that cost down .

We will pay for the shipping fully as long as it does not exceed 5% of the
total orders cost (before discount) .

Example :
5000£ (10-14 boxes) order might have shipping cost of 500£.
We will ship and invoice you for 250£ .

This is relatively to our discretion and if shipping costs are 7-8% we
will charge nothing .

I have forwarded your suggestion for Parcelforce and will have more
information soon .

Use the information I have sent you to help make sure you never have extra
costs .

Finally I need to speak with you or Navin about what the plan is for the
next three months and distribution sales in Sri Lanka .


Best Regards

Yannis Krommydas
Business Development Manager EMEA and India
Emerging Markets
Tel: +30 6970839161
Email: yannis.krommydas@games-workshop.co.uk

Games Workshop Ltd



---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Re: You know...
From: "Navin Weeraratne" <navinstrategy@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, January 20, 2011 5:39 am
To: paul@vb-investment-group.co.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

32, but 27 in my mind...

*Cost of Shipping*
If I had a day extra I can give you that sort of detail, but I never get a
day extra. What I can say is that we paid $600ish for three boxes, then
another $100 for customs fees out here -- so that's $233 per box. This is
more than we would have to pay if they had come from the US. Most of this
money we are not going to be able to recover from this clients, because
somewhere in the middle of month 2 of them saying "wtf?" I gave most of them
free shipping to stop them from canceling their orders and fething off.

On that note, there are 5 boxes they have right now - and they will only
send it by Fedex. That's going to be over a $1000, and if we don't ship,
people are going to start demanding refunds / free shipping and we are not
going to be able to make that money back on them.

I have asked IMD for the final bill, with their VAT as a separate line item
(I don't want to pay VAT -- and I want them to credit us for the VAT we paid
previously). We need to get these moving asap, or we're going to piss
another month's worth of customers.

*On that Note, Cost of GW... *
These bastards froze our account. We cannot do business with people who may
take a large amount of my money, and then not give me anything, or may
simply decide they don't want to supply us for any reason, or who waste our
time with constant emails.

Neal was 40% off - he also didn't waste any of our time, got back to us in a
timely fashion, shipped within a week, declared whatever customs value we
liked. Also, there are incorrect items that GW sent us -- with Neal, I
simply say "we did not get x but were charged for it," and he takes care of
things on the next shipment, no problem. I really don't see Mr Quarterly
Meetings giving us that sort of attention to things like that which actually
matter.

We took risks with a new supplier, and risks with a new freight forwarder,
and I have been badly, badly, burned. I want to take much smaller risks now
-- I don't mind if it takes us a month or two longer, I can't afford to be
losing large amounts of money, while paying myself fuckall for a year again.
I'm just not doing that again.

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Damage Control For Latest Shipment
From: "Navin Weeraratne" <navinstrategy@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, February 6, 2011 3:47 pm
To: "paul" <paul@vb-investment-group.co.uk>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hola,

The last of the GW-IMD feth up finally shipped, and should be turning up
this week. The clients on this lot as about as irritated as the ones on the
last lot -- I cannot help feeling that since all our clients from end of
October to end of December were affected by this, that this may in some way
be affecting our sales...

I've had several emails from people saying that they thought we were
scammers, but since we were supported by the D6 Generation, they stayed the
course to see what would happen. I want to pay the D6 for the $80 ad for the
next couple of months at least, as this rubber stamp of legitimacy has saved
our ass. I want to do this in addition to the $30 banner, and once our image
is less damaged, we can get out of the $80 ad.

When the minis finally get here, I want to White Knight all the affected
customers by:
- blaming GW and the freight forwarders
- telling them we are going back to our US suppliers, so this gak is not
happening again
- Offer them a free membership to one of the Discountfigs products.

I've tried this with a couple of people and it wins them right back over.

Cheers,

N

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Told Lucas not to tell Neal we are doing Flames of War 30
From: "Navin Weeraratne" <navinstrategy@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, April 18, 2011 11:26 pm
To: "paul" <paul@vb-investment-group.co.uk>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I told him if Neal doesn't know about it, we don't want to be telling him
that we are for his own plausible deniability.

If Neal knows and:
- has a problem with it in principle
- does not want the risk that comes with supplying us

We need to put this on hold till we can find a different supplier and work
out how to screen ourselves effectively.

I don't see us getting a different supplier with any sort of ease -- Neal is
breaking everyone's rules by supplying us at all.

N


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Re: Flames Of War Paypal
From: "Navin Weeraratne" <navinstrategy@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, April 18, 2011 12:06 am
To: paul@vb-investment-group.co.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The "paintedfigs" paypal is indeed my personal paypal account. I just tried
changing it so that it does not say paintedfigs.com, but it won't let me.

We can use the navinstrategy@gmail.com paypal instead. The catch here is
that:

- Navinstrategy paypal is not talking to its associated SG bank account, and
I haven't figured out how to sort this (even though the account is verified
by paypal)
- So Navinstrategy paypal must be sent to pnweerar@gmail.com paypal, and
then withdrawn into our US bank account as per normal.

The SG transaction fees are (currently) 3.4% + 50 SG cents
The SG paypal to US paypal transaction fees for a "personal transfer" are
1%.

So this means 4.4% + 0.40 USD. We are currently charging 5% for payment
processing costs.

Shall I go ahead and connect sales@flamesofwar30.com with the Navinstrategy
paypal account?

Cheers,

N

Wow, WTF is wrong with these companies!?


POSTING YOUR INTERNAL CONFLICTS ON THE INTERNET IS UNPROFESSIONAL. It makes everyone look childish, immature, and incapable of running a business. If you value your business and personal reputation - stop it.

If the owner is truly commiting fraud and financial crimes, STOP POSTING ABOUT IT AND CONTACT THE POLICE. The prior release of internal emails damages any future litigation against the defendant and could easily lead to civil charges of libel being filed against the "accuser".

There are just so many things wrong with this whole situation. No one looks good in this whole affair and there are a lot of red flags pointing to some sort of grudge over an internal conflict that truly amounts to nothing.

At least we know to steer clear of all parties in there.

I don't really see what's so wrong with anything they allege Navin to have done. So what if he's dodging customs in his own country? Sri Lanka is as corrupt as all hell and as a citizen of none of the countries involved in the transaction, I wouldn't give a crap if the due taxes and charges weren't being paid. Most border control and customs is pretty much one big scam anyway.

Sounds like Navin is doing his best to engage with suppliers that will be reliable and cheap for his customers and him. You know, like you're supposed to do in a Free Market Economy. Games Workshop are hardly a very ethical company to begin with.

I say good luck to Navin and I hope things pick up for him.