Camping World Rant

[JudyJB]

Once again, CW has caused my blood pressure to rise. My water pump stopped working a week ago, and I figured I would wait until I got to Ohio to get it fixed, but then discovered that most of the Ohio campgrounds either had no water hookups or they were turned off until May 1. Even some that had full hookups had the water turned off, plus the last resort KOA near my son's house was even closed. So, as usual, CW was the only place that had the pump I needed here in Georgia, so I stopped by one and picked it up. And while I was there, I asked if they possibly had time to install it--not a problem. Would take only an hour. (Ha! ) It was only 2:45 pm, and I had only an hour more to drive, so I bit and pulled my RV up. What could they mess up? (As if I didn't know.)

Anyway, almost two hours later, discovered that they had not started installing it, but they promised it would take only 15 minutes because they had everything ready. OK, so 40 minutes later, it was ready to go. I went outside and discovered they had left the battery switch on "off" which I never do because of the food in the refrigerator. Turned it on and with a few clicks, it was working. Turned on water pump and kitchen sink and all was well, so I locked door and off I went.

An hour later when I got to my campsite, I damp-mopped the floor and noticed water coming out of the bathroom. Opened door and found a full sink of water overflowing, rug soaked, cabinet under sink wet, even stuff in drawer wet!!! I had left water pump on, not knowing that the Stupid guy had left the bathroom faucet on with sink plugged!! Took me over an hour to clean out wet stuff and wipe off toilet with antiseptic, plus wash floor and put new rug down and clean towels up. Tossed out four rolls of toilet paper, a packet of those things to keep your nose open while you sleep, plus a bunch of other things inside the drawer and cabinet. Even band-aids and my prescription meds in one of those weekly containers had to be tossed. I had to take everything out and wipe it down. (Note that water pump is accessed from an outside bin, not inside my RV.)

I am going to call CW and rant tomorrow. And why in the world did they need to go in my bathroom at all????? There is a sink in the kitchen to test the pump as working, and at least it cannot be plugged up as easily. This is the second time an RV workman has gone into my bathroom for something when he really did not need to, so I am really mad. I am not a horrible germaphobic, but I really dislike some stranger in my bathroom.

And next time I get service on something, I am going to tape off my bathroom and put a sign on it!!!!

[chalet05]

I think most of us will tell you to avoid Camping World. Fortunate that I can replace my water pump by myself.

[JudyJB]

Some day I would like to get mine moved. It is located behind a storage bin in a narrow pass-through so I cannot reach it. Almost requires a skinny person who can climb halfway in bin. Impossible with my short arms.

[MandysMom]

Suggestion. In our bus, we always have a spare water pump. Why not order one of the model you need and keep it just in case. We had ours go and because we had the spare, it took Mel 30 min to get us going again. Then he rebuilt the older one and it became the spare. If you kept a spare you could go to a better person to replace yours than the idiots at CW. I once spent 11 hours for them to pull the generator on my van under warranty with them whining about how it took extra men because it weighed over 600 lbs. went home read book and it weighs 150 lbs and takes 4 bolts and unhook propane and a few wires. Then they kept it a month to fix it and another 8 hours to reinstall. And it broke again right after warranty up of courses, never CW again.
Velda

[daydreamer08]

Wow, what a mess!
I'll remember to put CW down as a last choice if I get stuck.
Glad you are back to your campsite. Enjoy the day.

[Redetotry]

I think Camping World has put the word out on you! What they did sounds deliberate to me. I know it doesn't always work but I am always very polite even when I'm not happy. When I worked it was the people who were impatient and tried to intimidate me to put their orders in right away, whose requests went to the bottom of the pile, after I smiled sweetly at them and said of course.
My husband frequently asks if I'm taking to an old friend when I call for repairs, service etc. I nearly always get great service, better prices and my blood pressure and theirs goes down. Do some deep breathing then call and place your complaint calmly would be my approach.

[longdog2]

BJ....
If you can get great service from Camping World just because you are so nice to them, you are better than 90% of the rest of us because Camping World is notorious in the RV world for poor, shoddy work which takes forever. Camping World is probably the #2 complaint of all RVers with poorly manufactured RVs coming in at #1. There may be 2 or 3 around the country that don't have that reputation but they are a very small portion of Marcus Lemonis' Camping World. I don't blame you a bit for ranting Judy.

[Cudedog]

Judy:

You **GO** girl!

Being nice has never gotten me anything besides the brush-off. In other words, squat.

A few years ago my 95 year old father and his 92 year old wife were having telephone outage problems. With their regular, old-fashioned, home account (Verizon). The only way I finally reached them is by telephone the Hemet police department and requesting that someone go by and check on them.

The officer called back, said that they were ok, for now (Dad's wife used portable oxygen) but that there were telephone service problems in my Dad's area. Of course, had there been an emergency, with no phone, they would have been out of luck.

I tried to telephone Verizon from my home to get the problem resolved, but because they could tell that I was out of the area, they refused to help me for "security reasons".

So I got in my car and drove the six-hundred miles to his house (only took me about seven hours - imagine that) and got Verizon on the phone from his house on my cell. I guess they could now tell that the call was now originating from Hemet. I was - again - told that there were service problems in the area, and that his phone would be out "at least another week". I was also told there were no service technicians nearby - they were all "somewhere else" working on the lines.

I said that I perfectly understood, no problem, but that as soon as I ended this call that I was going to immediately telephone the local ABC/CBS/NBC television affiliates and explain that there were two 90-year-olds, one handicapped on oxygen, without phone service, and that Verizon was unable or unwilling to rectify the situation (and I meant it). I added something like "you know. . . television news just loves to broadcast stories like this one". The rep on the phone said that "he would see what he could do".

I kid you not: Within twenty minutes there were not one, but two Verizon service trucks in my Dad's driveway. Ten minutes after that he again had telephone service.

Maybe in the old days "nice" would cut it. Maybe for some folks it still does - if so, good for you. I am genuinely happy for you!

But for me, in these days of pass-the-buck, customer no-service, not-my-fault, get-to-it-next-week, can't-speak-english - well, "nice" doesn't work for me.

After all, "they" are supposedly working for me - I'm not working for them. In effect, I hired them to do a job for me, (whether it be RV repair, telephone service or what-have-you) not the other way around.

Sorry I am a bit more riled than normal. I know that some of you probably think I am riled all of the time, but that's not true. Just most of the time.

Anyway, the reason for today's rile-ment is that I just got off of chat with Walmart - the customer-no-service rep passing the buck for Walmart not delivering an item I ordered online, that I had my credit card charged for, and have not received. (Oh? You have not received the item? SO sorry. Multiple apologies. I will immediately escalate your issue to our higher-ups. You should immediately hear back, please allow three business days for a response. Thank you and have a nice day.)

Three business days to get a response?

AARRGGHHH.

Anne

[Acadianmom]

To add insult to Camping World's shoddy service is that they lie to you about how long something is going to take so you won't leave. They tell you an hour when they really mean 5 hours.

Martha

[Redetotry]

So why do people go to Camping World if everyone hates it and know they have terrible service and lie about how long a repair will take. I guess I just don't have the temperament to do rants, obviously we are all different. I still advise breath work and some better chant a bunch of oooooommmmmms

[monik7]

I'm with you BJ. I always worry about people who let things upset them often. Makes you wonder how all that affects their blood pressure, heart, and health in general. "Om mani padme hum."
Sandi

[JudyJB]

The problem is that when you are traveling cross country and something breaks, it is really hard to find the right thing sometimes. For my toilet a couple of months ago, I called all over Ft. Myers one day to try to find a short toilet. (Mine sits on a platform in my bathroom, so the one that sits on the floor would put my feet 7" above the floor!) Over two days, I could not find a short toilet, and the only ones that would order one for me was Camping World. The campground I was at was not a good place to get delivery and I was not likely to be there when it came because I had to move, so having it delivered to CW seemed easier. And I was desperate for a toilet!!

As far as the water pump, I had hoped to wait until Ohio where there is a dealer I trust for the water pump. I was having a hard time traveling north trying to find campgrounds in Ohio and Michigan that had water turned on. Some campgrounds did not open until May 1 and others had only one fill in the whole place until May 1. I have an appointment for an oil change and some other things in Ohio, but that is a few days after I arrived and I needed a place to stay before then, hence I needed a water pump before I got to Ohio.

Originally, I decided to just buy the pump at Camping World and then have it installed elsewhere or by a mobile tech. I figured having the part was hard enough, so I stopped by to just buy the pump. Then I got sucked in by their saying it was the end of the day and they had a free tech who could install it within an hour. That sounded a lot easier than trying to find a mobile repairman or an RV dealer in Georgia on my route.

Full-timing is harder in terms of service because you do not have a home base where you park your RV for months at a time and can get things fixed at a place you know at your leisure. I have a few places I trust--one in Ohio, one in California, one in Las Vegas, etc. but things don't break in those places.

[Acadianmom]

My experience with Camping World was 6 years ago and I haven't been back.

Martha

[Cudedog]

Ok, this is becoming an interesting thread.

Probably I am missing something here. Perhaps some of the members can set me straight. Although I don't have blood pressure problems, further suggestions might be of help.

Here is where I am not "getting it":

Say I go to CW and enter into a verbal contract for goods and services (in this case, maybe, an RV repair). After verbally, and carefully, discussing each of the terms and conditions at some length, I then agree on these terms and conditions - i.e., the work that I need, the parts I need to have the work completed, the total cost and the time needed to complete the work.

By the very fact of offering themselves as a public RV repair facility, CW warrants and represents that they are experts in the field, and that they have the experience and expertise to complete our verbal contract in the manner that has been discussed and agreed upon.

In other words, they have made me a promissory agreement of fulfillment of terms and conditions. I then commit to this verbal contract by opening my wallet and signing official paperwork authorizing the work. At signing it then becomes a written contract.

Then, when the work is not completed in a timely fashion and/or not completed in a professional manner, I am not to be in any way upset or dismayed by this serious breach of contract and am, instead, supposed to just be "nice"?

Really?

Anne

[Redetotry]

I’m not saying don’t express your dissatisfaction. I am however saying that jumping into a rant causes harm to your body. You may eventually get a solution but, was it worth the cost to your health. Your body has gone into the fear/flight mode causing the rest of your body to have negative reactions. When a person experiences anger the brain causes the body to release stress hormones, adrenaline and noradrenaline. These chemical help the body control the heart rate and blood pressure. Some scientists think that chronic anger may be more dangerous to your health than smoking and obesity. Many people are like me and can actually feel negative energy in people and protect themselves by avoidance or by putting up a barrier immediately, to ‘bad’ energy.
I have realized it is also a regional/societal thing. When I was working I could always tell where people were from by the way they interacted with me. I realized early in my marriage that I was the one who had to deal with anyone doing work for us as my DH was not from this area. We were doing some remodeling and he had no idea that his tone of voice and the way he expressed himself came across as rude. He wasn’t from here originally and did not understand the culture of this region, so I ended up as the go to person. Where I live coffee, cookies or baked items are usually offered to anyone who comes to their home to work. I also will often take something to the people who I interact with like the vet and the place where I have my RV serviced. That reminds me, I better get something ready, the Hanyman is coming to fix our sinks this morning! They turned the water off on our street for while yesterday and all the air in the pipes caused sediment to release and clog two of our faucets. We don’t have the necessary tools to get the part loose to clean, hopefully they won’t have to be replaced.