So there's this email going around, saying nasty things about me...

This morning, I found several emails from worried clients, asking about this email going around:

You May Have Been Caught In The PaintedFigs Financial Scam. Miniatures
Unpainted, Or Are Owed Money.

I am M.E. Shenny, I have an interest in gaming and am a journalist, so I
decided to do a little investigation into the claims made by Navin
Weeraratne.

What I discovered about Paintedfigs.com was incredible. Ranging from Navin
Weeraratne assaulting Paintedfigs staff, how his miniature suppliers, The
Warstore and every client unwittingly help Navin facilitate money
laundering and tax evasion, through to how Navin admits he was only
interested in making easy money and has long since lost interest in
running Paintedfigs.com.

I'm sorry, if you have received this email, it is because your address was appropriated by a third party during the period that I was talking to Raef Granger about on his podcast:

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

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 do not 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 opens with an easily exposed lie, 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

Paintedfigs.com - Knights of the Dinner Table!

You have to forgive a little self indulgence sometimes.

Gamers spend so much time working on their homebrew settings, their characters trappings and back stories, their miniatures and their paint jobs -- which I feel makes it well deserved when we sit back and take a look at ourselves.

One may feel it a sin of ego for us to this, but you have to consider than when gamers look inward - they lose all ability to take themselves seriously. From Renn Fests; to "The Gamers" movies; to beer-and pretzel-games, we are very good at poking fun at ourselves, to the point that it takes on a life and industry of its own.

Part and parcel of this niche interest within niche interests have been the "Knights of the Dinner Table" webzine. What's started as a comic strip has grown over time into a constellation of products based around this highly successful IP.

One of these products - of course - has been some miniatures. I believe these are out of print now, so good luck with digging them out :) . Our client Scott Funk did and sent them over for us to work on, I understand this was his first time using a painting service too.

Funk is the real deal. In addition to being an ardent KoDT fan, he's also done a HUGE D20 conversion for the Robotech Chronicles, and IP that has been neglected since the Palladium days.

Anyway, here are his Knights of the Dinner Table.

Cheers,

Navin

Regarding the Paintedfigs.Com JimmyJango interview with Raef Granger: Trying to Contact Paul Burns of VB Investment, vb-investment-group.co.uk

Hi Paul,

I got your email but for some reason when I try to reply it (even by my personal mail account), I get a message fail notification:

Given the nature of your email I imagine you need me to get word to you anyway I can, and so I'm blogging my reply.

Here's my Reply:

Thank you for your email,

It is good to hear from you Paul, I hope you are well.

I'm glad you've had a chance to listen to my interview. It is odd though that you do not seem to have noticed that there is no reference to the identity of the person who conned me out of my money, whatsoever in that interview, or anywhere online. No where is that person named, or their company named. 

Thank you for your detailed email on this matter though. I will keep it.

Regards,

Navin

And for context, here is your email to me:

paul@vb-investment-group.co.uk ✆ via paintedfigs.com	10:11 PM (13 hours ago)
to navin, pnweerar, navin

Navin,

It has been brought to my attention an interview you did on http://www.jimmyjango.com/ and the subsequent publicity surrounding it.

In summary, you claimed your company was not in financial difficulty when I started in April 2010. That you did not bribe or take part in money laundering and tax evasion and that I was some sort of venture capitalist who had come into your company and stole $30,000 and various other assets.

We both know these comments are both outrageous and wildly inaccurate and I therefore demand an apology.

If you apologise now and agree to publicise the apology we can agree mutual wording and publicity, you can save face and that will be the end of the matter.

If you fail to appologise to me in writing by the 10th February 2012 and then undertake the agreed publicity of the apology, I will publish all relevent documents in my posession online. The contractual terms you agreed to, emails, your company accounts etc, that category prove your talking nonsense.

I will then use all methods at my disposal to actively publicise these documents including but not limited to your clients, your prospective clients, paypal, your bank, the IRS, Customs and through Google both directly and through their and indeed all the major search engines. Then people will be able to see for themselves what really happened.

So the choice is yours, either way this matter will be settled by the 10th February 2012.

Paul


VB Investment Group
____________________________________________

www.vb-investment-group.co.uk

opening hours Monday - Friday 9am - 5pm GMT

PRIVACY & CONFIDENTIALITY

This e-mail communication is strictly confidential and intended solely for
the person or organisation to whom it is addressed. It may contain
privileged and confidential information and if you are not the intended
recipient, you must not copy, distribute or take action in reliance on it.
If you receive this e-mail in error, please advise the sender as soon as
possible and also confirm that the e-mail (and any attachments
accompanying it) has been deleted from your system.