| Starscapes |
| Starscapes Delievered $10 product for $5000 Mesa, Arizona |
| 9th of Dec, 2010 by User379534 |
Starscapes charged several thousand dollars for something that was basically worth a few hundred dollars, at most. Their instructions on how to do the starscapes were actually pretty good, but you can get instructional manuals for things that are equally complex from the bookstore for $20; you can get instructional videos for under $100. As far as their marketing and sales help, for you to start your own business - it's junk. If you took Junior Achievement as a high school student, you already know more than Starscapes teaches you, and if you didn't take JA, you could go to your local library, check out a couple of books on how to start your own business and how to market yourself and still come out ahead. BTW, I did some more investigation after feeling cheated by Starscapes, and I found another site on the web for a company that sells something very similar. The company is Stars So Bright, their website is stars-so-bright.com, and they sell a planetarium kit as an educational product. They actually will give you all the how-to stuff and equipment that Starscapes does for about $100 instead of several thousand. I went ahead and bought it to do a compare and contrast, and while their video isn't as detailed or as glitzy as Starscapes - it's $100. Their paint is better, too. The Starscapes paint is nowhere near as bright as theirs. They also send you some educational stuff like a star chart and software that you can give to your kids or charity if you don't want it. They do NOT provide you with any marketing blah blah. But, like I said, if you are a half-way intelligent person, you can get all the marketing stuff from the library. The stuff that you can't get anywhere else, the instructions on how to create the starscapes or murals or planetariums or whatever you want to call them - you can either spend several thousand dollars or spend a little over $100. Even if you decide to go with Starscapes for the instructions, I'd still get my paint from stars-so-bright. It's better and it's actually cheaper for the high quality stuff than any other site I was able to find on the web. Also - regarding the money back guarantee - Starscapes won't give your money back if you open his product. So, basically, you get to return it, sight unseen. If you open it and even look at it to figure out what the product is - you don't get your money back. Trust me, I tried. Stars-so-bright, on the other hand, will give you your money back even if you use up all their paint as long as you do it within 30 days. So, all you are out of is the cost of shipping. Frankly, even if you don't successfully get a business started, the stars-so-bright kit, for $100, provides you with a good value because, like I said, you can give the educational stuff to your kids and at least get your own bedrooms painted. It really IS a cool effect, so just to do that it's worth the $100. I just don't see any reason to get ripped off by Starscapes when there are other options out there. I mean, yeah, if Starscapes sold for $300 I might see buying it instead of stars-so-bright because the video is better, but it's just not $5000 better. And the stars-so-bright paint is definitely a better value.
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Yes. I have had some experience with Starscapes and they are largely negative. Founder Joe Petrashek has been buying the back covers of those cheesy business opportunity mags for years, so I got curious and ordered the intro package or as he describes it: "The Portal". A "portal" is a hole or a gateway. if anyone thinks what this man gives you is a "portal", you've got a hole in your head! And a big one. In fact, how anyone orders the $5000 "full monty" after seeing the intro package, is beyond me. The "portal" he sends you is a sheet of cheap dot-matrix printer continuous feed paper with various sized circles printed on it. My paper was full of wrinkles and rolled up in a standard size poster mailer tube. Also included was 2 thimble-sized containers of glow in the dark paint and 2 toothpicks. I am dead serious. You are to dab the paint on the various circles with the toothpicks and voila! You've got your "portal!" When this arrived, my first thought was: "This is a joke, right? This guy can't be serious. I am supposed to take a flimsy, wrinkled piece of paper with some dabs of glow paint on it, tape it to the ceiling of an upper middle-class family's bedroom and expect to impress them enough to make a $500 mural-painting sale with such a demonstration?" Arrested maybe. But a sale? The slick, glossy full page ads claim: once they see the "portal" demonstration: "Your customers will think there is a hole in their ceiling!" To which I add: after that demonstration, if someone actually hires you to do anything other than take out the garbage, those missing ceilings tiles must have fallen on their head!
According to Mr. Petrashek's bio, he was at one time, an amateur stage magician of some sort. He has retained at least one trick from his former repertoire: making money disappear from your wallet and re-appear in HIS! And he's darn good at it too. Only this is no trick, illusion, or smoke and mirrors. You are going to lose your money and he isn't giving one single penny back to you. His "money back guarantee" is a bigger farce than his paper-portal. If you dare to even open your $5000 business package, (Yes. $5000!) the guarantee is voided. Only an unopened, non-examined package is refundable! Say what? Not only can you not try the business on for size to see if it has any potential, you can't even LOOK at it! The reason according to the former magician? Trade secrets are contained therein. Right. So, just what ARE those "trade secrets"? For five grand, you get a "star projector" for displaying the star-like images you will be painting on the ceiling. This is similar to the toy "planetariums" that sell for $25 in toy and hobby shops everywhere. You also get a "galactification wand" for "super charging" the glow in the dark paint. This is a small black light that sells everywhere for about $10. He includes paint of course (hopefully more than 2 thimbles worth) and various brushes and paint dabbers for painting your mural. And of course he includes the "trade secrets" on how to turn all of this into a money-making opportunity to make all of your dreams come true. After you recoup your five grand, of course. But like so many of these so-called "opportunities", the only person making any really serious income is the opportunity creator himself. Even if I thought someone could make a viable business from painting glow in the dark ceiling murals, I cannot imagine paying this guy $5000 for learning how. I don't even know if Mr. Petrashek ever actually went out and painted murals himself, but he must have graduated from the P.T. Barnum School Of Business. Only a sucker would plunk down 5 grand for something you can't even open up and look at, much less try out. Apparently, like in Barnum's day, they are still being born every minute because those full page, back cover ads aren't cheap. Mr. Petrashek is also very good at PR. He not only blankets cyberspace with glowing "testimonials", but he intimidates his followers with a signed, sworn statement of secrecy! Unenforceable as it obviously is, his flock are scared to talk at all about their experiences, much less talk dirt about their glow in the dark guru. I contacted over a dozen of his "licensed" artists (yes, the "license" is an extra charge) and to a one they were "no comment". Scary. Not stopping there, Mr. Petrashek silences the few critics brave enough to go public by claiming they are "working for the competition". Competition? What competition?? This guy must be planning to run for office. He's that slick. So, is Starscapes a "scam"? By definition, probably not. But it is a ridiculously over priced, highly exaggerated "opportunity" that will enrich very few but the founder himself. Furthermore, his marketing style preys on the poor, the naive, and the vulnerable. He boasts that he has sold his $5000 "dream" to folks in Africa and other third-world countries where 5 grand is a sinfully enormous investment. That angers me...Conceptually, an attractive, artistic, glow-in-the-dark rendering of the heavens on a bedroom ceiling is an interestingly appealing idea. Realistically, it might work as a novel niche offering to an existing artist's or other creatively talented individual's portfolio. But as a "money-making, work from home, business opportunity", Starscapes, like its founders' former venture, is all smoke and mirrors... |
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| Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I really appreciate hearing these stories from others so that I know for dang sure not to go even more into debt for nothing. I am actually considering ordering the Planetarium kit from Stars-so-bright, com.!! It's definitely a better price than Starscapes! Hah!!! The only thing that would probably be worth hanging onto would be the carrying cases, otherwise, not worth the dough. Again, thank you for your honesty and sharing it on here for everyone else to see. I can get the promo materials from Vista Print easily and probably at a much better price. |
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| Oh and I did want to add that I have ordered the "Starter Kit" and only paid $1 for shipping. I received the kit this week and read through the materials. Included in the materials was a voucher/order form with a reduced price of $2995 for the $5K package. After looking up prices on Vistaprint.com for similar brochures, business cards, and advertising materials, the $2995 sounds closer to the costs than $5K, especially if you add the upkeep of a website and extra paint. However, I still like the attitude of the people on the other website of Stars-so-bright.com. They don't hide anything or details and offer the money back guarantee. The licensing of $20/month is still questionable too. Just wanted to let everyone know too! Do your due diligence and research everything before you make any major decisions. |
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