Today’s column reported that offers to name stars for you are a scam. I would like to report that the scam has recently become sugar-coated. When my kids named a star for me for my birthday, a few years back, it came with, not only a certificate, but a teddy bear as well. The bear was cute and had embroidered shooting stars on its paws.
I waited a few days to let them know that it wasn’t an official list, even though I really appreciated the thought, certificate, and bear. I judged they were old enough to bear the disappointment, what with being over thirty and all.
So if you feel like having a star sort of named after you, now you know to hold out for the bear.
If he used International Star Registry, then they no longer have the “teddy bear” option. At this time they have three price tiers:$54. $109.95, and $154.95. They also sell pendants and pet rocks, btw.
Well, it has been a few years, and I didn’t keep the certificate long, so I can’t verify which registry. Wait. Google!
OK, here’s one. This isn’t the one that I got. Oh, my. It looks like various companies buy the stars from an existing registry and use them to create the bear packages. That’s an information page, not a store front. That company might be out of business.
That’s sad. They had better bears. The one on amazon looks like it just comes with the application forms included, so you don’t have the certificate at the time of gifting.
As Cecil surmised in the column the scam is still flourishing on the net. As is the no doubt equally lucrative business of selling land on the Moon. Lunar Land (“the first and ONLY company to possess a legal basis and copyright for the sale of celestial properties.”) will sell you as much lunar real estate as you want at the knockdown price of $29.99 an acre.
The company proudly boasts that over 2 million people from around the world have bought extraterrestrial properties from them. Who knows? There are certainly enough suckers out there.
But how does the company get away with this? Isn’t this false advertising, at the very least?
The claim is apparently that some the relevant treaties fail to prohibit private ownership of extra-terrestrial land, and so some dude staked a claim to the entire surface of the moon and the other “eight” planets and has been selling 'em off piecemeal since 1980.
It may be legal in that he’s selling his own claims, which may be allowed even if the claims are later found to be invalid (as they no doubt would be; I think most jurisdictions require that an owner have at least the capability of occupying and/or defending claimed property).
Powers &8^]