StarNow Reviews 127

Starnow is an absolute ripoff. I signed up for I think £9 last year. No jobs matching my profile, then they take £140 out of my account without any prior notice and without my permission. Absolutely shocking and only way to contact them is through a Ai chat. Also been contacted by some fake agent wanting to represent me. Stay far away from them. I wish looked them up before but was recommended by someone during a shoot.

I am an indie film maker with low budget for short films. I wanted to recruit actors for my short film via starnow. I created a casting and paid for the casting. The portal used Onfido to check my ID (PASSPORT) successfully before I created casting. I started to receive applications but after couple of days I could not login. I then wrote multiple emails to support and finally found out that my account was suspended and they asked for the below to reactivate:

- A link to my company's website. (Company? gosh!)
- Links to previous work samples. (I dont watch it myself, I am new and learning)
- A copy of my resume and/or a link to your LinkedIn or IMDb page or other professional resources that can confirm your identity and credits. (What resume?)

I dont have any of the above since I am literally starting out and learning while doing. Also they should have asked for the above before taking the payment for casting shouldnt they?

I plan to stay away from this site and use other professional sites or recruit actors from agencies directly.

They have taken money from my account three months after blocking me from using their site!! This is cheating as per the agreement and I would dispute this

You once again have locked me out and do not allow me to login this is not the first time. You never send the reset login link and I have no access to my account. Backstage do not help nor yourself if it's not accessible by the end of today I want a refund as you never respond to emails and this is not the first time you have behaved in this manner with me so I suggest you rectify this issue asap or I want two full refunds as this is the second time it's happened.

They gaslight you. Reported to Advertising Standards. There was an offer through a well know model agency where you could sign up to star now for free and enter their modelling competition. When I was asked to pay by starnow and explained the situation they didn't even address the question. I ended up paying but their website is not very good

This app used to be great but now they have completely destroyed it. It looks like the Backstage app and it’s just rubbish. They layout is awful and difficult to use. There are no jobs suitable anymore and I know Casting Agents are staying away from it. I used to get a lot of work from it but since it changed I’ve had zero!
Why mess with a perfectly good app. Such a shame but I’ve cancelled and I know lots of other have too.

As someone who has used StarNow for around fifteen years I am in a good position to comment on how disgusting the new site is since Backstage accquired it.

Clearly a deliberate ploy by Backstage to destroy what was once a simple, functional and effective casting website just to try and get people to migrate to their own.

Reprehensible site. Reprehensible business tactics. Cancelled my sub after 10+ years, as many others have done too.

Don't use it, don't give them money.

How can they totally ignore two emailed requests to cancel my membership? Still taking money from my bank account against my specific wishes, is theft!
This has to stop!

Was good when started but now the jobs are rubbish and low pay, looks more like a dating site not working job site
Filtering jobs can be a pain and its just a messy site

Was amazing!
Changes have made it 5 star to 1

It has now been a WHOLE MONTH since all my data disappeared and you have failed at migrating my data from the old to your new website. The only few things on my profile at the moment are only those I uploaded on Backstage a while ago, not on Starnow. I had a lot more on Starnow including photos, videos, voice recordings, description and credits, which are still completely missing. Moreover, I have been requesting a refund for the inconvenience and inability to work this has caused, by emailing you as advised and have never heard back (it has been 3 weeks). Why won't you admit that you have lost my data and I have no other choice but to rebuild it entirely? Please reply to my emails as soon as possible and issue a refund as requested. Thank you.

Expect a class action soon. We paid you a monthly fee to preserve our data which we had a right to. You completely destroyed our beloved platform, for many, this was their livelihood. This is shameful and disgraceful.

Use to be great but not sure why they made the changes that they did with the website. The backstage format is terrible. There was nothing wrong with the old profile. All of my media and information has been removed.

I was thinking of renewing but only when and if things go back to how it was orginally.

Disgusting service, Star Now have ruined what was a great site.

I am very disappointed by the quality of the service, since last week I am still waiting for a response that is not automated by the system, StarNow does not take my query seriously and the service that they offer is very low quality and deceitful, I warn you all to turn off the auto-renewal feature as soon as you sign up as you will be charged using this very cunning trick, even if you have made £0 in 6 month of being on the platform and stopped using it for many months, you will still be charged and never refunded under any circumstance.
There are much better options out there, with a better and real customer help line, and with ethical ways of conducting their business, in my opinion they are committing fraud by going into my personal bank account and claim my money without ever once getting my consent, this is unacceptable and for me this is the last time I will ever use such awful service.

I wish I could give a 0 star rating, utterly disappointed and frustrated by the worst app of the kind, if you want an advice, don’t waste your time and money, totally not worth it.

Totally destroyed by backstage. It was a great site, with great functionality. It is now useless, their customer service is absolutely appalling. Their silence in the face of outrage is spectacular. The only possible explanation is that they are deliberately destroying the platform to get people to migrate to Backstage which is where all the problems with the 'new' Starnow have come from.

It was THE IDEAL platform prior to being acquired by Backstage. It's shocking how no thought was put into revamping a 5-star platform to a 2-star Backstage one. So much of arrogance that they ruined it for all talent and casting agents, likewise. The issues are too many to even list here. Such a shame. Watch how a competitor/new entrant will just so easily sweep in and take all their customers away.

It used to be great, but now they have combined their service with other platforms, so I'm concerned that fees will be going up, yet valid auditions are no longer coming through.
My daughter keeps getting random job recommendations she's not interested in, or searches from agencies for unrepresented talent, when she already has an agent!
Waste of money right now, so if things don't change soon, we will not be renewing our membership.

StarNow used to be a great site. It looked great and was easy to use. We didn't need it to change. We were happy with it. But now Backstage owns it and have completely ruined it. They "upgraded" the site making it an exact replica of their own, and then doubled the costs so that it is more expensive than their own completely usless website. For 15 years I was a loyal, PRO member of StarNow, like many others were. But Backstage have really pissed us all off, and in the process lost many of us as subscribers.

Do not listen to their customers. Do not offer any support. Lost complete trust since they changed sites.