{"id":36525,"date":"2025-03-31T15:23:56","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T20:23:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/?p=36525"},"modified":"2025-04-01T08:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T13:24:08","slug":"the-starscope-monocular-scam-is-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/?p=36525","title":{"rendered":"The Starscope Monocular Scam is Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

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We’ve been down this road before. To understand how this scam works, read this article<\/a>. It covers all the details.<\/p>\n


\nThe short version. A foreign company, pretending to be in the United States, buys cheaply made Chinese monoculars in bulk for about $8-10 each.\u00a0 Then they sell them in the U.S. for outrageous prices. They make ridiculous claims about the quality of the monocular. For example (see the image above): “The lens is equipped with revolutionary optical technology that lets you view crisp, clear, gorgeous images that are as good as a high-end telescope lens!”\u00a0 No. It is a cheaply made Chinese monocular.<\/p>\n

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Or they claim (image above): “You can hold it up to your eye and see things miles away as if you were right beside them!”\u00a0 Totally untrue.<\/p>\n

Don’t be fooled. The last time people got ripped off by this scam, their credit card numbers were charged to a company in Asia. They had a hard time getting their money refunded if they didn’t like the product, and some people did not get any refund even if the product never arrived. Good luck going after company in Asia to get your money back. U.S. Consumer Protection laws do not apply to purchases made in other countries.<\/p>\n

The terms and conditions are awful (read them here<\/a>), and include extra charges beyond the product and shipping, and there is a charge if you try and return the monocular.<\/p>\n

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They have limited time offers so you can “Pay Only $54.99 instead of $109.98”. They don’t tell you that you can buy the same monocular on Amazon for $38 or $25, or even less if there is a special. How good is the quality? Below average. I know. I bought one for less than $10 to check it out. Good enough for a kids toy but not good enough if quality matters to you.\u00a0 I have quality comparison photos in this article<\/a>. Don’t buy this monocular until you see my comparison photos.<\/p>\n

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Note that these photos are both on the Starscope home page, but they do not match. The exterior design of the monoculars is different. That is because the people behind this scam buy similar, cheaply made Chinese monoculars. You don’t even know which one you will get. You might get one with even lower image quality than the below average one I bought.<\/p>\n

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Where is the Starscope company based? It is hard to say. Companies that run this kind of scam are usually in Asia. I looked up the Starscope web site at ICANN and the web site was registered in Reykjavik (screen capture above). That is a strange choice for a company claiming to be “Proudly American”.<\/p>\n

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Like the last time the Starscope monocular scam hit the internet (back in 2021), they created fake review sites. Note the photo of the reviewer, Bill Johnson, above. We will get to him in a moment.<\/p>\n

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It is no surprise the Starscope is the top rated monocular in this fake review. If you read the whole fake review, (it is here<\/a>), the Leica monocular rates 3rd and the Celestron monocular rates 5th. Seriously? So the cheaply made, Starscope Chinese monocular is better than Leica (one of the best) and Celestron (which is well above average)? Believe it or not, there are people gullible enough to believe this nonsense.
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Now for Bill Johnson, the supposed author of the fake review. I Googled his photo. His photo is attached to dozens of fake online identities. I quit counting at 75.<\/p>\n

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I did two screen captures of some of the Google image search results. This guy is everywhere and does just about anything.<\/p>\n

For the record, If someone wants to sell cheaply made Chinese monoculars in the U.S., I am ok with that. After all, I bought one via Amazon to check it out. It would make an ok toy for some kid.<\/p>\n

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I am NOT OK with pretending these monoculars are an American made product (this screen capture is from the order page). There is no U.S. address or phone number anywhere on their web site, including the various contact pages I looked at. I am NOT OK with make outrageous claims for the quality when these are below average monoculars. I am NOT OK with ripping people off by adding extra charges that are buried deep in the “Terms and Conditions” page that most people never read.<\/p>\n

If you want a lower than average quality toy monocular for your kids that was made in China, don’t order from the scam site. You could get ripped off and never get your money back. Go to Amazon and search for “monocular” and you will find this same monocular (you will recognize it by the photos) for $38 or $25, or even less if there is a sale. Choose a reputable seller at Amazon.<\/p>\n

Links<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starscope home page<\/a><\/p>\n

Starscope Terms and Conditions<\/a><\/p>\n

Fake review article<\/a><\/p>\n

The Star Monocular, It is the Same Old Scam<\/a> – originally posted October 11, 2021, and re-posted March 31, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve been down this road before. To understand how this scam works, read this article. It covers all the details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-photo-accessories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36525"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36549,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36525\/revisions\/36549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}