Lazy Days has unscrupulous and deceptive trade practices. My husband and I were extremely interested in a 40 Foot 2005 Safari Cheetah and spoke with a Mr. Walters about coming up that weekend to purchase it but we wanted to see inside photos and a floor plan before we made the five-hour drive from Miami. Photos were not available on Lazy Days web site. Mr. Walters had provided us with a price of $123,900. And the only thing still being requested by us was photos and a floor plan. We spoke and emailed on Thursday and I sent him our trade in information. We had our 2001 Safari Cheetah listed for sale on RV Trader, which included a detailed description along with numerous photos.
On Saturday February 23rd I called because we had not heard from him and we were planning to drive up Sunday Morning. The receptionist said he was not at work that day. I had previously asked him if he was working on the weekend and he said on and off. I spoke with another salesperson who told me the coach was SOLD. The coach that we had been working with him on all week. Upon hearing this, both my husband and I were extremely upset. My husband called back and spoke with the General Manager on duty. He was extremely nice, but of course had no knowledge of the situation and immediately had Brant Graves, Sales Manager call us back. Mr. Graves initially told my husband that he had spoken to Felix Walters prior to calling us back
Mr. Walters stated to Mr. Graves that he had asked me for a deposit which I had refused to give. During that conversation, Mr. Graves also stated to my husband that he would give us $72,825.00 for our trade-in and was attempting to locate another coach for us to purchase as the one we had wanted was sold. However, nothing was resolved and we felt that this was the first Bait and Switch. I wrote an email to Mr. John Horton, CEO of Lazy Days who asked Ms. Liz Adamo, Executive Administrator of Sales Operations to contact me to rectify the situation. She put us in touch with Mr. Jay Fink who immediately tried to find us another coach that we would be happy with.
Mr. Fink sent us several coach options, none of which worked for us. We asked Mr. Fink to look at a 36 Foot 2005 Safari Cheetah. It was not our first choice, especially because it was four feet shorter, but at that point we felt that Mr. Fink was trying his best, and so was Lazy Days Management. The final offer Lazy Days provided us on this Coach was $123,900.00 with a trade in value of $68,375.00 for our trade in.
I think it is important to note that this is for a Coach that is Four Feet Shorter with one less slide than the one we were initially negotiating for and our trade in value had decreased by $4,450.00. With some consternation, we agreed to these terms. We took off work and arrived at Lazy Days Rally Park on Thursday evening ready to have a walk thru and take possession of the new coach first thing Friday Morning February 29th. During our walk thru Mr. Fink came and interrupted us and said we need to talk. He was with Brant Graves, Sales Manager.
During our conversation they said that our coach had problems and they could not give us what they said they would as a trade in. Mr. Graves admitted that he offered us $72,850 but things had changed. Please understand that we had several different trade in scenarios in writing from Lazy Days. None of them had Upon Inspection or based on inspection as a condition. We were led to believe that this was a done deal. I asked to speak to Mr. Horton. They came back with Pat Overby, General Sales Manager, and Mark Baiss, Wholesale Manager. Mr. Overby said that Mr. Horton would defer to him (Overby) anyway, so there was no need to talk to Mr. Horton.
So I guess in his own mind at least, Mr. Overby is running the company. Needless to say, after our previous encounter, we were furious. We had to come up with an additional $3,000, which we had not planned to do. I initially refused and my husband asked me to compromise and offered for us to split the difference with Lazy Days. After checking, Mr. Fink advised us that the answer was no to our compromise proposal. So, even though we had verbal and written assurances by Mr. Graves, Mr. Fink and Mr. Walters your management team reneged and we had no choice but to come up with the additional money if we wanted the Motorhome. I reluctantly agreed to sign the documents to close, feeling at this point the second Bait and Switch had taken place.
We are asking for the return of our $3,000, which we feel was obtained through fraud and deceptive trade practices.
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