StarNow Reviews 451

It's very sad that Starnow used to be a really good site. It was well priced, loads of jobs - even some really good quality, well paid jobs. Then after they were taken over earlier this year... it delivered a masterclass in how to destroy a business overnight. I cannot begin to describe how dreadful it became. The site redesign was - to put it euphemistically - catastrophic and the whole profile/application/job advertisement side just became effectively useless. I cancelled my repeat subscription after several good years with them - and they're still sending me blasted 'advert' emails.
I strongly suggest not to waste your money with this website. Such a shame - they should hold this up as a case study in every Business Studies course on how to kill a successful business in one master stroke.

I received an e-mail advising me of my upcoming renewal but no mention of the amount (just a link to what I had paid previously which was an offer).
I contacted customer service asking for the amount of the renewal as I was about to cancel the auto-renewal to avoid surprises. I was referred me to the same info on my profile, then got confirmation that the amount would be the same.
The payment came through for 20% more than planned due to Sales Taxes that were never mentioned before (and I can't claim back).
I will definitely cancel my auto-renewal and choose what kind of membership scheme I want to go for when I see the price list and the options available (yearly, monthly...).
On the positive side, I DO get some work through Starnow platform.

Scam ,they lock you out your account, so you can't cancel and keep taking 35 out of my bank but not as a direct debit so you can't cancel it unless you contact star directly, which you can't do because they don't let you

They do not have an option to cancel your automatic subscription. You have to contact someone or send an email which is a hassle!

I also do not get or see job postings anymore compared to other sites.

Absolutely shocking! They seem to have merged with Mandy.com now that they've been taken over by Backstage and both are useless. The filters don't work, they have no jobs on display. Will never sign up to them again!!

They locked my account even though I payed £14.95 to upload my ad. The update is horrible and confusing. They are scammers now

Not sure if backstage is trying to put Starnow out of business or what!

Customer service is horrendous now that they've partnered with backstage.

I've been trying to get my account back up since it's been locked and none of their customer service team have been assisting and take nearly a week to reply to emails that i've had to chase up!

Star now has really gone downhill. Wouldn't suggest putting your money into this garbage site.

This is a scam website, I have been with this agency for many years, they took money from me but never sent me any job. Compared to other agencies that send me job every week.

A little disappointed with the update takes a while to create a casting call and it no longer reaches out to a decent audience. I loved star now before this. Please change it back to the original.

I had been a member of Starnow for around 7 years and used the site frequently, it was good, it simply worked.....but then came this years website overhaul.
The website has been broken from day one:
Photos not maintaining order.

Having to reorder them everytine you apply for a role which means it can take 15 minutes per application by the time you complete this task.

Slow clunky website.

I had paid for my membership in a 6 month chunk. As of today I have had a support ticket open just over 6 weeks. All I get is someone messaging me back every week or two saying the support team are looking into this.

I popped a post on the Actors UK Facebook page to gauge if I was the only person with these issues. Turns out I am not. So the service is broken, StarNow will not publicly admit it and continue to take peoples money.

When asking for a refund due to losing 2 months of my 6 month paid membership I had this rubbish response:

Nina (Backstage Help Center)

Aug 4, 2022, 3:11 AM EDT

Hello Matt,

Thanks for reaching back to me on this.

We certainly appreciate that you shared with us additional feedback from other subscribers.

While I understand that you feel a refund is warranted, unfortunately, as your cancellation request comes outside of our 30-day grace period for refunds, we would not be able to process a refund for you at this time.


Please view our terms & conditions for more information.
Again, thank you so much for listening and working with us through this, please let me know if you have any further questions - I would be delighted to help.

All the best,
Nina

My final email was:

Wow really!!

So you have a 30 day grace period but:

Released a broken website.

Dragged on customer support with responses coming back a week at a time.

Told me to sit tight while I wait for the Technical teams to resolve.

Issues are still not fixed 6 weeks later.

Not sure you can apply the 30 days grace period excuse when there has been:

Poor execution of a website overhaul.

Inefficient technical support, root cause analysis and problem resolution.

But what would I know, I've only worked in this technical support arena for large corporates over 25 years.

Matt

Continue charging after cancelling subscription

The old starnow was better without a…
The old starnow was better without a doubt
-5stars it is so so bad

I have tried to unsubscribe to my daughters account for the last two years and they still continue to take subscription fees. I have had to contact my bank so they can stop the transactions. They are a dreadful company. Impossible to contact except through their online request process that they don't respond to and deny receiving because you dont have proof the message was delivered. There are no security measures in place for unsavory characters that are just looking to film/photograph attractive young girls - my daughter was plagued by a man who wanted her for his "amature" film, could give no indication what the film was about and just kept telling her she is very attractive.

If I could rate them lower than 1 star then I would.
Used to be a good company, but since their ‘update’ I can honestly say it’s the worst company I’ve ever had to deal with.
For one, I didn’t get told about their update until after it had happened.
Then all my information from my profile was erased.
Then I was asked (3 months later!) if I would like my information transferred to the new platform.
And that was 2 months ago and it STILL hasn’t all be transferred.
Despite me messaging them many times, and them (very slowly) replying telling me I’m in the ‘next batch’ of updates.
Absolutely appalling.
I’ve missed out on countless jobs because of this.
AND you no longer get notified when someone messages you. So unless you actually go on the app or website every day to check, you won’t know if someone has messaged you.
Again, I’ve missed out on jobs because of this.
I will certainly not be renewing my membership and I would tell anyone else to not sign up!

Scammer will keep calling and email. Anyone who works for this company is a desperate sad low life who should rot in hell

I unsubscribed years ago after StarNow failed to fulfil its promises regarding work opportunities... and now I am being spammed by them.

It is not possible to unsubscribe. It is not possible to make contact with them.

Don't use StarNow - and certainly don't give them any money

Are any of the profiles real or getting the messages?

I have ran a number of posts recently as I have done over the years.

Recently I have noticed that no one seems to bother replying to messages. Quite a few apply to an application but no one seems to get back in touch.

Where I come from I would consider this to be rude and highly unprofessional. If you're not interested then don't waste people's time or just say that you are no longer interested.

The one or two messages you do get back they have mentioned that they haven't received the messages. Something I have flagged to Starnow and just get fobbed off.

I have a feeling that Starnow have been restricting people in order to get high volume of paying talent and push out those that are generally wanting to be creative or have a passion for the industry.

It seems to be about money grabbing from those that have a talent or a dream of feeling good about themselves.

Looking at the other comments it would seem that starnow and it's sister companies have serious issues when it comes to their image and questions to answer how they conduct themselves.

I could go as far as saying that Starnow has turned into an industry joke scamming people.

The old starnow was better without a doubt. This version you cannot see if your messages have been read. The lay out of a person's profile still looks amateurish, the pro status was abandoned. This all should have been sorted long before now.

Like everyone on here I HATE the new version! It was finally nice to find a site easy access, professional etc... now it just seems harder to use more time consuming they will loose a lot of people unfortunately unless its reverted. Great shame

Apparently we can't swear. Despite the company deserving it.

So I'll keep this simple.

Creating an account when one is 25ish years old and "permanently" deleting it not long after doesn't mean start randomly spamming me 10 years later and ignoring all "unsubscribe" attempts. You shouldn't even have my email.

Parasitic is all I can say.

Note: If you have attempted to unsubscribe but still receive emails you can report them to ACMA. The more people who report them, the more likely they will be held accountable.