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Hello,

My name is Navin Weeraratne, and I am the owner of Paintedfigs.com. A negative PR campaign that would put a US election to shame, has just been waged against me. My stake in the gamer community has been attacked. My business ethics have been tarnished. My brainchild of the past eight years, Paintedfigs.com, has been smeared.

I’m not discrediting these attacks (I’ve done so earlier). I’m not arguing with claims that last year’s order delays were thefts. Instead, I’m giving you positive proof that we are exactly who we say we are.


A Thousand Plus Galleries of Painted Armies, Including Many Recent Projects

See for yourself: https://plus.google.com/photos/105582963113829861589/albums

It takes a bit to load sorry: it is over 1000 galleries. Click on some galleries and read their publishing dates. See how they’re going up almost daily? See how large some of those orders are? Check out the dates and quantities over the past three months. Or if you like, past three years, your choice.

That’s a lot of painting going up, especially in recent months, isn’t? It suggests a lot of painters. Skilled workers expecting skilled pay. Conmen don’t spend on the job: that defeats their purpose. Now, better conmen may spend a bit to look legit – but does it look like I’m spending a bit? Or, does it look like a huge amount of work is getting done?

Don’t take my word for it. Go on, look and see for yourself (seriously. Please look). Especially if you’re one of those people saying:

“Now, I don’t knooooow if he’s a thief, but this whole thing at least smells fishy, you know. I wouldn’t buy from them again just yet.”

Dude.

Would 10,000 galleries convince you? How about 100,000? A million?
I bet I have more pictures online of Games Workshop products, than Games Workshop does.
Either I have one helluva painting team, or I am a terrible conman.


Catching Scammers is Paypal’s Job
Retailers don’t like working with Paypal. It’s a pain. They randomly freeze your account and run inquiries on you. Even end-users are annoyed by Paypal. Paypal has a good reason: they are the frontline against Internet fraud.

If we were scamming people, Paypal would have watched the complaints go up, and then just moved in and shut us down. Simple as that. They probably have an algorithm to flag fraudulent behavior.
I’ve spent 11 months cleaning up the damage caused by a parasite – one who still attacks us today. 11 months that started with slow refunds, late orders, and large backlogs. If we were scamming people that whole time, how could we trick Paypal?

We simply would not be having this conversation. Paypal would have cleaned us out.

A year ago.

The Largest Miniature Painting Service in the Fantasy Business
There’s bigger painting services out there, but they’re not dedicated, custom, fantasy painting outfits. We’ve got twelve full-time staff (not bad for a recession, eh?):

- Two builders
- Three newbie painters
- Five experienced painters
- One studio manager
- One Navin

That’s over 30 man-years of training and experience. It’s also a big payroll to cover. A conman won’t have a big payroll. He’ll ideally have a payroll of just one – himself. Not convinced about my team’s size? Go back and look at the galleries. Figure out how much I must paint to maintain such a hoax.

It’s not humanly possible – if it was, I would have found out.

And patented the hell out if it.


Six years Experience
Six years. You don’t do something that long if you don’t love it. You have to push ahead. Solve problems. Build systems. Train people. Sometimes, you even have to log back on Dakka and defend your reputation. No one sweats like that over something and then throws it away.

Also, who waits that long to make a quick stolen buck? Conmen want fast money. If you take six years, you may as well be working for a living. If I was thief, I would have robbed everyone a long, long, time ago.


Big Names
We’ve sponsored the D6 Generation in the past, and we’ve painted off and on for all three hosts. Most recently, we did some work for Craig:

https://plus.google.com/photos/105582963113829861589/albums/5714869185976480609

and we’re doing some next for gone-solo Raef. We buy our minis from Neal. These are not people who will bugger about with random fraudsters. These are people of strong character. These are people with a stake in the community. These are people who know the score.


We Didn’t Quit When It Hit The Fan
If I was going to scam the wargaming community, here’s what I would do.

1 – Presell a huge amount of minis, painting services, etc… at a massive discount (40% -50%) to as many people as possible. Exactly like we did.

2 –Start having problems with delivery, and run for as long as possible taking people’s money but not giving them their goods. Exactly like we did.

3 – Send out a big email about how we got robbed of all our money but some mysterious, evil, third party we never actually name. Exactly how we did.

4 – Declare bankruptcy. Walk off with all the money.

Oh wait! We didn’t do that.

I spent the next year answering angry email after angry email. We made cuts. We lowered wages. We worked weekends. We took money from new orders, and used it to finish old orders. I went into debt. I took responsibility for a mess that I had gotten myself into. I took care of my clients.

All the clients who went through the problems of 2009-2011, either got their minis or got their money back. There are a few people we’re still refunding, but the for the most part order has been restored.
A conman doesn’t sit around to face the music after he’s robbed you. He flees town. You all know my name, you all know my business, you all know where I live. Can you say the same for an invented persona that attacks me online?

Paintedfigs.com is still here. We will always be here. People have slung mud against us since the very beginning – download our pricelists and you’ll have an idea why. If you think work like this doesn’t speak for itself:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150636257568585.399360.105483868584&type=1

Then I must refer you to the reply given in the UK legal case, of Arkell vs. Pressdram.

Kindest Regards,

Navin Weeraratne, Paintedfigs.Com
Grand Poobah of South Asian Fantasy Painting.

I still wouldn't trust sending my models across the planet just to have them painted. There are too many people here in the US and UK(myself included) that offer commission painting without the hassle of Customs and extortionist shipping charges. And also without the year long wait times. An army of 100-150 models should take a month tops if you are assembling them as well. 1 year to complete anything short of a 30,000 point army is insane. Especially if you have more than 1 person doing this in a "studio".

I'm not saying you are scamming people, but I don't know how you convince people to send their models to the third world just to be painted.

Whilst I'm sure we can see and understand the point you're making there, I think it best if we (try) to keep this a bit closer to the specifics of this case, for now anyway. Assuming that people here have been affected by this in some way or other.

Thanks !

I have NO OPINION on the issue and am NOT casting aspersions. I'm speaking neutrally.
Can you explain this difference, though?

My brainchild of the past eight years, Paintedfigs.com, has been smeared.

Six years Experience
Six years. You don’t do something that long if you don’t love it. You have to push ahead. Solve problems. Build systems. Train people. Sometimes, you even have to log back on Dakka and defend your reputation. No one sweats like that over something and then throws it away.

Also, who waits that long to make a quick stolen buck? Conmen want fast money. If you take six years, you may as well be working for a living. If I was thief, I would have robbed everyone a long, long, time ago.

At one point it's 8 years. Later on, it's 6. Can you elaborate on this seeming inconsistency?

Eric

That's a good spot, MM... I've personally never heard of this website or the supposed "smear campaign". Have people dealt with / commissioned them before?

Like reds8n said, it would be very helpful for people to stick to the specifics of the actual commissions / cases (i.e. the facts...) if this is going to be able to stay open.

Personally, I'm very curious if anyone has experience with this company and can share! To me, this just comes out of left field...

I believe http://www.discountfigs.com/ is a description of the issues with the aforementioned site, or at least it explains concerns they have with paintedfigs service.

Disclaimer:
Other than the link, I am personally in different on the subject, I just know how to use google to get answers. Additionally, I have never used this service.

I should add, there are a lot of reviews out there of the site, certainly with conflicting opinions, but having never used the service it could at best be taken at hearsay.

As someone with no stake in this matter, I must say that your post makes the impression of "Look at how much we've done, certainly we would never get away with this if we broke the law at all", rather than an explanation of "Look at what has happened to give us this negative PR, what really happened, and how we fixed it to be in operation today".

It just does not sound very upfront to me.

I am wondering if this announcement doesn't cause more trouble than it's worth. These issues are now VERY public.

I used them once, a test order for two kroot hounds. The initial spreadsheet appeared to offer 4 for the price of two and I thought I was getting a good deal but I was eventually contacted by the OP and set straight. More than 3 months went by with several e-mails back and forth and I finally got my painted models. Three months to paint two figs is a bit long if you ask me, I was just glad to not be out the money; however, I can not endorse the company simply because several red flags went off during the whole process (order change, lead time, inconsistent stories regarding the cause of delays).

A buddy of mine had some Dystopian Wars stuff done by Paintedfigs, and the results were very average at best. And yes, it took months and months to get them delivered. This was during the time of the alleged theft. It's enough to make me leery of using them. However, that article on discountfigs.com by "journalist M.E. Shenny" is difficult to follow and hardly professional in tone. Hard to say what the truth is buried in all of that mess.

I figured I would leave this here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/436361.page

A person with 3 posts had a very stellar review of some models he had done and towards the end of the post, it starts sounding like a commercial for the company.

HokieStone wrote:A buddy of mine had some Dystopian Wars stuff done by Paintedfigs, and the results were very average at best. And yes, it took months and months to get them delivered. This was during the time of the alleged theft. It's enough to make me leery of using them. However, that article on discountfigs.com by "journalist M.E. Shenny" is difficult to follow and hardly professional in tone. Hard to say what the truth is buried in all of that mess.

I agree with you 100%. That "article" for lack of better words was a total mess. Not a very well written smear campaign.

I just think Navin would have been better off letting this fade away. It wasn't being talked about on Dakka, but now it's out there for everyone to see.

There's a ton of different reviews on Paintedfigs.Com. Some of them are good, some of them are less than flattering. In the end it's up to the buyer to decide. Hopefully this mess gets cleared up.

I just ordered an entire 1500 point army from him and I could not have been happier. Navin has been insanely helpful and polite throughout the entire process. I'll post a link to my photos. They are standard quality if anybody cared.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/436361.page

I highly recommend their services. They delt with my nit picking for the entire process and never complained at all.

I had a little work done a few years back (no painting; just despruing & mold line cleaning). It went fine.

I'm wondering when a member with more than a few post counts will give a positive testimonial. Seems like Dakka is full of commercials for Paintedfigs lately.

edit: Just read Janthkins post.

I am not a painted figs spammer I just am new to dakkadakka and would like to assue people that he is legit. Throughout the entire process I had something for him to deal with everyday. I was not an easy costumer and he delt with me quickly and politely (also with wit at times ).

I intend on ordering again from him in the future mostly because I trust him and I suck at painting.

Mr.Pirate wrote:I am not a painted figs spammer I just am new to dakkadakka and would like to assue people that he is legit. Throughout the entire process I had something for him to deal with everyday. I was not an easy costumer and he delt with me quickly and politely (also with wit at times ).

I intend on ordering again from him in the future mostly because I trust him and I suck at painting.

Fair enough Welcome to Dakka.

Mr.Pirate wrote:I am not a painted figs spammer I just am new to dakkadakka and would like to assue people that he is legit. Throughout the entire process I had something for him to deal with everyday. I was not an easy costumer and he delt with me quickly and politely (also with wit at times ).

I intend on ordering again from him in the future mostly because I trust him and I suck at painting.

Guess who has two thumbs and tends to view with skepticism rave reviews by new posters.

Would believe me if I posted on this thread in another year?



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Is time the only credible form of trust here? We must learn to embrace others and learn to trust... Oh wait this is the Internet nvm

Mr.Pirate wrote:Would believe me if I posted on this thread in another year?



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Is time the only credible form of trust here? We must learn to embrace others and learn to trust... Oh wait this is the Internet nvm

I won't say that time is the only trust here, but it helps. Perhaps not even post count as some people just spam the OT forum all day and have thousands of posts. But then some people have been here since 2005 and only have a few hundred posts, sometimes less. I tend to trust people who have been here and active at least a year.

BTW, posting a link to a post with a link is in no way posting your army pics. I rarely click on links to outside sites from here, let alone from new users. If you want to show off your army, either upload to the Dakka gallery or use photobucket like the rest of the modern world and post the actual pics on this forum, not a link.

Aerethan wrote:
I won't say that time is the only trust here, but it helps. Perhaps not even post count as some people just spam the OT forum all day and have thousands of posts. But then some people have been here since 2005 and only
have a few hundred posts, sometimes less. I tend to trust people who have been here and active at least a year.

This. It's not time or post count; your credibility is based more on your contribution. Les Bursley has just over a thousand posts and his opinion is nearly unassailable on all things painting and modeling. I lurk in the deep recesses of the OT and probably only have 600 some odd posts in PandM that I consider useful...and some of them probably only say "nice." Maybe when the images in your gallery don't just come from paintedfigs.com's website, you contract another painter, or *gasp* paint your own models and post them to your gallery your credibility will be less in question.

I can post pictures of my eldar but they are the price of meh.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pinnacle*. Sorry about the spelling I am on a iPad and it auto corrects whatever it feels like.

So if you've been spurned, whats up with the general shot across the bow?

I don't know you from Adam, so in seeing your rather spirited post, I'm kinda left wondering if you are making a mountain out of a mole hill.

If your service is as good as you claim, then its going to sell itself. If you have issues and people arn't getting thier product fast enough for them, you'd better step up and put a digital tracker on it or something.

One hand, you shot yourself in the foot- because even IF you have an issue and a rat in the kitchen, you slapped a coat of whitewash on it, and supposedly all is forgiven.

On the other, YOU are the one sitting there with a company. SERVICE based, but a company all the same.

I would be doing more in house upgrading, stepping up the distribution issue, and tracking process, then I would "Protesting too much".

People understand hiccups. They do not understand mealymouthed excuses and doubletalk.

Only thing we can do on a sevice based money making opportune is- How can I fix the issue? does an issue really exist, and if it is, what is it?

other then that, hope you do well and good luck to you in your endevors.



Don't take my post as negative, I can see how an issue explodes on the "Internets" surface, but in the real world, your company will stand on its own merit- YOU do not have to pipe up your own laurals in the affair.

I appreciate the comments people are making here; from happy clients, skeptics (even hippos), and those who have had or know of "meh" experiences with us.

Really quickly: the 8 years / 6 years gaffe is because we've been around for 6 years, but for me its 8 as I was planning and researching the idea for Paintedfigs.com for the two years previous.

I have no problem with issues of long timelines being discussed with reference to what we do - that's a very real problem we face, and always have. It's the principal draw back of the Asian painting services.

Western services are faster, but more expensive.
Asian ones are slower, but cheaper.

There is the choice, and therein are the two business models.

If you Google Paintedfigs.com, you'll find a lot of material from the smear campaign. The reason we're going back now and revisiting all these, is because our responses and reassurances to customers need to turn up in those same searches. I have no issue with people seeing the smear material -- as long as they can read the case I make against it, and then make up their own minds.

What I wanted to achieve in this post -- which is why it need to be brought up again - is to establish our credibility as a real company that does real work, not a bunch of Nigeria-email scammers.

It has however been pointed out to me that my tone is more than a bit condescending and angry, and for this I apologize. That's not fair on anyone.

Thank you all.

I was more bemused at the original post as I had no knowledge of the background of what was going on or what it involved but I'd echo, it didnt come across particularly well Pnweerar.

However I can see where the anger (and passion) came from in the OP. Your last post has come across much better and well explained and fair dues.

Cheers for trying to clear up the image of your company (although as you can see from certain posters when you "go live" with stuff such as this its best to grow a very very thick skin).

I cant comment on your quality or speed times, reviews seem mixed as to quality and service so there may well be other things to work and improve on but GL for the future.

I've had paintedfigs.com do a lot of projects for me, and I intend to give them more business soon.

I worked at Painted Figs from April 2010 and was commissioned to build and manage a number of websites in this time in return for a fee. In early 2011 Navin Weearatne, the owner, decided he wanted to keep the money he was paying me for himself, thanked me for my work, even pointing out how good it was and then terminated my contract. I never chased the outstanding money he owed me, but explained that as per our agreement considering he hadn’t paid for some of the newer sites he couldn’t therefore have them. For me that was the end of the matter.

Subsequently Navin Weearatne realised he wasn’t as competent as he thought at implementing the marketing plan and his cashflow dried up. So he decided to invent the story that I stole his money and then he expanded this lie. Even blaming me for the poor performance of his painting service, namely slow turn around times and painting quality that is average at best. Apparently I even managed to impact on Painted Figs performance before I worked at the company and long since after I left.

I privately gave Navin Weearatne the opportunity to apologise for his libel/slander and pointed out that as he had brought this into the public domain and published my name and email address that if he did not apologise I would talk to a journalist to set the record straight and publish my subsequent interview online. In which, I would detail all the emails Navin Weearatne sent me during my time at the company, proving that what Navin Weearatne was saying was nonsense and a lot more besides.

Navin Weearatne did not apologise and continued to slander/libel me for all the issues of his company. So I published my interview which can be found online at http://www.discountfigs.com/

I received an interesting email asking me the source of the emails used in http://www.discountfigs.com/ and were they infact sent by Navin Weearatne.

The sender also outlined that they had contacted Painted Figs asking them the same question initially Navin Weearatne wrote back saying he would answer. When he received the questions he wrote back again saying he would not answer them.

The sender also outlined they had contacted Neal at the Warstore to ask for a reference about Painted Figs, but had not received one.

As outlined I was paid to be in charge of the Painted Figs website and build and manage numerous others from April 2010. So have all the email records from that time. My interview just outlined what Navin Weearatne said in these emails. Emails which anyone is free to download from the site and see for themselves. I am not accusing Navin Weearatne of anything. I am simply making public the type of person he really is, duplicitous, what he said in his emails is one thing and what he tells everyone of Painted Figs customers / prospective customers is something else. And that some of the things he does are illegal.

He doesn’t deny sending the emails. But points out that he has been around 6 years and that it’s Paypals job to catch scammers. A quick trawl of ebay and a Google search that reveals various fake items shows, I think ,Paypal doesn’t quite see their service in the same way Navin Weeraatne does. Amongst other thing he is still openly admiting he was trading while insolvent, but doesn’t seem to realise that is illegal.

The incompetent invent stories that blame others for their own short comings. The guilty try to discredit the source, not the facts. All the spin in the world cannot change the fact that the emails I say Navin Weearatne sent are genuine, which he does not deny and he fabricates stories to cover his own incompetence. To date it has been everyones fault but his and that list includes: customers, Games Workshop, courier firms, customs officials, me, various other members of staff and that he has been ill. No doubt when he was at school the dog ate his homework frequently as well.

I find it strange that Navin Weeraratne consulted his libel lawyers on the matter and their advice was to let it slide. Who has ever heard of a libel lawyer letting a matter slide unless it was true? So, if Navin Weearatne and the Painted Figs libel lawyers would like to challenge the authenticity of those emails in a proper court of law I am happy to oblige. And if I stole from you why didn’t you call the Police?

I am not a gamer so I have no authority in the gaming community. But if you believed everything people with authority told you, we would still believe the world was flat and of course governments never lie. So because I am not a gamer doesn’t mean what is said in my interview on http://www.discountfigs.com/ isn’t true. Infact the opposite, because I have nothing to loose. I am not the person who is pitching for your business, Navin Weearatne and Painted Figs are, so who benefits from lying? Navin Weearatne, who looses his easy lifestyle if you believe me or me who looses nothing if you believe Navin Weearatne.

If you believe me Navin Weearatne is an incompetent, duplicitous, liar. If you believe Navin Weearatne he is just incompetent. Feel free to read what Navin Weearatne said in his emails at http://www.discountfigs.com/ Look at the images Navin Weeratne posts to show the quality of Painted Figs work, see what other gamers say and decide for yourself if you want to use Painted Figs or not.

n0t_u wrote:More or less you have to take the word of either at the moment, this new comer however is the spark it needed to take off probably. Though testimonial from a source like Janthkin pushes it into the favor of the OP a bit.

Yeah, but Jan didn't have any painting done...IMO despruing and mold line cleaning is easy money...

Not supremely invested here as I paint my own stuff. Sounds like OP is attempting to rebuild what he's lost after acknowledging he's f'd up. Can't blame a man for trying to get back up after he's fallen, but sending him my minis is a different matter. I'd be interested in hearing more testimonials to the OPs credit (or discredit) than a shouting match between the OP and his programmer. I like pictures though, I'll check out these 1000 galleries while I wait.

I have sent an ork army to paintedfigs.com and I will update with my experiences.

This isn't a front for the LTTE is it? Who is doing the painting? Bearing in mind that in the UK certain Petrol stations (Gas stations) were hijacked charging extra on card transactions to fund the Tigers! This isn't conspiracy it's fact! http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/apr/22/crime.scamsandfraud )

And what paints? How much are the people who are painting these getting paid?

There are some ethical questions here, I don't mind people commission painting so long as they haven't got a sweat shop under the house with indentured workers cranking them out.

If we can have some transparency and assurances I would be much happier recommending you.

Further more Vaercathor will be a very good barometer, although even one opinion is never enough.

EDIT - Hold on..... WTF

1st post on 1st page

Vaercathor wrote:I've had paintedfigs.com do a lot of projects for me, and I intend to give them more business soon.

2nd post a page later

Vaercathor wrote:I have sent an ork army to paintedfigs.com and I will update with my experiences.

If they've done lots of projects already then review them...but on the next line it's as if you've never done business with them...

This has all the hallmarks of slippery truth syndrome.