Complaint Review: Gary Spatz' The Playground - David Terry - Costa Mesa California

 They are teaching you the real ins and outs to this business! I am a professional producer and send all my kids to Gary and they come back better prepared as actors! Even the co-president of SAG-AFTRA said the same thing online...Google it for yourselves! Doesn't GET ANY BETTER THAN THAT folks! I recommend them to everyone because they are the best!

1.   My name is not "Regular Dad".  It's Anthony Lewis. I am investment banker for a reputable company. I work and live in Newport beach. I have nothing to hide and everything to prove including evidence, regarding my experice with your "observatory".

2.   The fact that this system defaults to the first state available for Location, if one is not selected does not mean this was not a legitimate complaint.

Lastly, you failed to address any of the true underlying concerns as they relate to your deceiving recruiting practices, your method of rushing parents into purchasing Schooling Packages or anything else.

You obviously failed to address anything. You did nothing other than failed at trying to discredit my heartfelt post about your shady practices. You mislead people and try to steamroll them into spending thousanForgot classes. I am not the only "Regular Parent" who has complained about this. 

To set the record straight.... I am a Regular Dad!! And because I care so much for my children I protect them from Has Beens like you who at some point at ther career were in a way associated with Hollywood figures, and now prey on innocent parents who earn an honest living. You keep clinging to the past and keep showing the same "suite life of zack and cody" material.

youre a liar, your company is bogus. A reputable and respectful company doesn't have a need to defend themselves online. Their integrity and references take care of that.

Listen Gary Spatz, no matter how you want to spin this.... This many people can't be wrong.

We'd all have more respect for you and you're observatory if you acquired clients in an honest fashion.

I hope I run into one of your recruiters again, I'll make sure we expose them land your entire sham.

dont kid yourself, you're not spending thousands to clear your name, you're typing rebuttals yourself on the weekends.

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Before we address the response to the grievance filed, we wanted to take this opportunity to make sure the reader is aware that sites like this one exist and depend upon revenue for reputation management services (i.e. so that the impacted company will hire a reputation management service company – the parent company of the site and their advertisers - to restore the company’s reputation for a price). While this practice is currently within the law, we believe this is a conflict of interest as there is no screening process for negative reviews (are they valid and true?) and the only recourse for a business such as ours that has been targeted is to file a rebuttal and/or pay for the reputation management services available on this or other such site. In addition, because of how search engines work, referencing specific names (of people, TV shows, networks, etc.) only increase the ranking of the negative content. This is a vicious cycle as every time a user searches on a name and clicks on the link to content like this, it only serves to make the article rank higher on search engines like Google.  This is why our response does not mention any specific names (as the saying goes “names have been changed to protect the innocent.”). However, we trust that our response will still communicate the truth of the matter in a fair and balanced way and educate the consumer so they can make informed decisions that are based upon facts.

We also want to express our distress at hearing anything negative about our acting conservatory and we take these complaints very seriously. We encourage anyone who has a complaint to please call and discuss the matter with us directly (all relevant contact information is available on our website). We will do our utmost to resolve any grievances if it is within our power to do so. Targeting a company like ours on a site like this never yields positive results and further serves to propagate negative content which many times is not factual.

Now to address the specific complaint:

We are an acting conservatory for kids and teens.  We are always searching for kids and teens that are interested in learning the craft of Film & TV Acting. Marketing companies invite us to their events. These events are supposed to gather kids and teens that have expressed an interest in acting for Film and TV. All promotional material is reviewed and approved, making sure proper legal verbiage is covered in the promotion. Basically speaking, it is clearly written that these are events for kids whom have an interest in acting, but not as an event for gaining representation or work.  This particular event had a young actress as its guest speaker. This actress graduated our conservatory’s two-year curriculum several years ago.  The marketing company obviously knows that we are more likely to hire them if they frequently use graduates from our program that have gone on to star in television and/or films. Many of their events do not feature a graduate of ours as the guest speaker, but in this case, she was.

The marketing company’s promoters mentioned  the name of a popular TV show because one of the stars of the show would be at the event. The event is by invite only. The “girl” in which “Regular Dad” refers to is the aforementioned actress; she has starred in over 100 episodes of several cable network TV shows, not “a few episodes.” Namely, over a four-year period she starred on three cable network shows regularly.

Our goal at these events is to find kids that not only would want to study acting at our conservatory, but to find kids that are qualified to do so. We cannot and do not take just anybody. There is a process to get into our conservatory. Part of the process is testing the talent’s potential. We do that by providing one of nearly 100 sample commercials to practice. The “Vans” commercial was simply one of these. No one ever implied there were any casting calls.    

The second meeting at our Orange County office was to allow the kids to perform the commercials they have practiced. We do this in one of several of our studios equipped with studio-grade cameras, lights and monitors. “Regular Dad’s” comment about us having an unprofessional office is a first for us. We have signage on the building directory, signage on the front door, and a five-foot logo upon entering our suite. We have a 3,500 feet space and a five-year lease with the highly respected “Offices South Coast Plaza.” The over six-figure build out is anything, but unprofessional. When “Regular Dad” questioned the professionalism of our offices we began to question the legitimacy of the complaint. It should also be noted the poster states that they are “Regular Dad…Orange OC” but the “Reported By” information provided by Ripoff Report reveals this post was created by “Arodi08 – Alabama”. This also calls into the questions the legitimacy of this report.

“Regular Dad” was convinced that our conservatory was a scam; we are not. He was convinced that we own the marketing company we hire for events; we do not. He assumed we offer and guarantee entertainment industry jobs, careers, fame and fortune; we don’t. We offer the best film & TV acting program for kids and teens. That’s it. No more, no less.  When “Regular Dad” comments that some of our OC kids haven’t worked, he clearly shows his ignorance. He refers to “that one girl who has been going a year…” - she must be getting something out of our program because she re-signed for a second six months after the first six months.

We are in our 9^th year of doing what we do. The BBB has rated us with a top rating of AAA. Complaints like this are never from our clients, but from individuals who do not have the facts straight. We have found that often these errors are fueled by false material found on the internet. We are licensed to do what we do, and your senators, your congressmen, and the District Attorney are all very aware of that.  In addition, the President of two premiere acting unions would not be thanking us for the good work we do if indeed we were doing anything unethical (ref. link http://youtu.be/0t2G2lRm3V0).

This review is patently false and slandered us erroneously. We will always stand up for the truth and set the record straight to put an end to anonymous defamation.