Listen to Al, he knows what he istalking about! I have pastels for $600 male, $1200 female, $1700 a pair right now! It is not a scam, they eat just fine and are great looking. Why assume that because some guy posts them for $2800 that they are selling for that? Don't you think that at shows if they are $2800 on a table (which they are not) that that seller will take much less when you wave cash in the face? Don't assume it is a scam when the people who are offering them can back themselves up with references and positive feedback from customers.
You see mojaves all over the place on the net for $6000-8000 each, but if you had been at Daytona and had cash you could have bought them for $3000 each without trying! It is just how things are. You get some saturation in the market and sales slow because the economy is so soft right now, unemployment is high, fuel prices are crazy, etc. and people are not buying the animals unless they can get a deal. I have told several people this year that I want to pay certain prices for a couple animals and they thought I was low a few months ago but now they are all seeing my prices as very reasonable.
As for pastel prices, all mutations of all herps go through a series of plateaus. You will see it over and over on different mutations. They start at a high of $10,000-25,000, then they drop in increments. Take the pinstripe, they started at $35,000, the next year, $25,000, this year you can get one for $10,000-$12,000. Next year they will not go too far below $10,000. In 2-3 years they wioll $5,000.
I bought my first pastel males from Mark Bell and Brian Barcyzk a few years back. I paid $1500 each for them. I produced 12 pastels from normal females I bred them to my first season with them, selling for $750-1500 each. Any way you do the math it works well.
If you bought a male pastel now at $600-700, fed it for a year, and bred it to 4 females (let's figure conservative), and you got 2 clutches (assume low production), let's say the clutches are only 5 eggs and 6 eggs (again conservative), so out of 11 babies let's say you get 4 pastels (you should technically get 1-2 more but I get nailed on the odds all the time). Let's say the pastels are 2.2. You sell them really cheap at $350 for males and $900 for females. So that's $2500. You invested maybe $1000 with food and electric heat included. Where else can you get a super pessemistic outcome of 2 1/2 times your money on a 1 year investment?