Buying a caravan from people you don't know.

We went to the Caravan show in February and decided to buy a Coachman 520 VIP via Andrew Brown, who we believe is a freelance sales person for Wandahome in Leeds. The deal done he agreed the van could be held until we got back from our holiday and that providing there was no MAJOR damage - the price would be held.  I explained that we were wary of driving to the dealership to be told there would be some unexpected charges. We also later explained to the lady who organises the workshop time that we would be staying up for the following weekend to make sure everything worked. That was OK and she even recommended some sites.

On arrival at Wandahome we were not greeted with ‘Hello Mr and Mrs Evans etc’ but:-

'Take the caravan off the car and we will take it for inspection'. OK perhaps they were busy.  When their chap came out to move the caravan he quite curtly said. ‘The van’s got to be empty.’ We had three plastic bags and two Aquarolls that needed moving. When I suggested moving them into the new van. ’You can’t do that, it’s not ready.’ Really? They had been waiting a month for us to pick it up. Not a great start!

We were then told the corners on our existing Bailey caravan were damaged and needed replacing, I agreed one needed replacing but the others were just scuffed. ‘Oh, and there are dents in the roof, probably hailstone damage but we won’t bother with that’. I was surprised at this as I had cleaned the roof the morning before and there were no dents I could see!  I wish now I had asked to the see them as I am convinced there were none!

So instead of looking forward to our new van we were faced with a bill of £750, When I said I wasn’t going to pay that amount the guy, again abruptly, told me he would fetch my old caravan and we were welcome to cancel. That obviously put us in an unenviable position and my wife had to talk me round as I was all for going home.

So we reluctantly agreed on the new deal and took the new caravan away feeling cheated and I must say conned. The next day the gas cooker and grill did not work. We phoned Wandahome and the lady said there was no one there at the moment but she would get an engineer to ring us. No one bothered to contact us.

I subsequently emailed the sales director, Nigel Burnley explaining why I didn’t have a good impression of his company based on what had happened and asking if this how they normally conducted their business?. It certainly isn't how I thought it should be done.

We received a letter within a few days thanking us for pointing out the deficiencies in their welcome procedure and confirming this would be improved in the future, then going to justify the how the charges were arrived at. There was a generic apology but it was a pretty empty gesture and they hoped that this reply fully resolved the complaint.  It also explained that there was no charge made against the rippling in the roof, rippling? We were told it was hailstone damage! To my untrained mind these are not the same!

I thanked them for their letter but explained that by no stretch of the imagination did their reply come anywhere close to resolving our complaint.

My main complaint was that we felt mislead by their representative, we agreed to the deal based on the fact we did not want to get to find we were in for any further charges. He assured us that, as I pointed out in my letter, if there was no MAJOR damage the price would be upheld. Scuffing on the corners is not major damage.

Also we were rudely treated by their man, Bruce, my wife actually told him so, his manner was curt and in relation to moving items for one caravan to another and he did not offer any help in making alternative arrangements or explain why this was not possible. We were very close to going home but we felt we were between a rock and a hard place.

No compensation then or later was offered to soften the blow so the whole episode left a sour taste and an overall disappointingly bad experience.

I am writing to you, the Caravan Club, to make other members wary of being put the position we found ourselves in and that it may help avoid a similar experience.

Sandie Evans