On a Florida shakedown cruise in their new fifth-wheel, Georgia Good Sam Club members Ron and Frances Bailey discovered that the RV’s mattress was coming apart at the seams. When the replacement from the manufacturer was delivered in even worse shape, Ron contacted Action Line for help so the couple would have a decent place to sleep on their trip to Yellowstone.
We purchased a 2013 Dutchmen Denali fifth wheel from RV World of Georgia in Buford. We took our first trip to Grayton Beach, Florida, to get acquainted with the new RV and identify any issues prior to our upcoming trip to Yellowstone National Park. We did identify several mostly simple things that needed attention, ranging from overhead lights that didn’t work to an air-conditioner thermostat that needed to be replaced. RV World corrected all of the issues without any hesitation. We also notified the dealership that the mattress was unsewn in three places, and they ordered another mattress and placed it in the RV, still wrapped in plastic. Once we got home, before removing the plastic, we noticed it was actually unsewn in five places—worse than the first mattress.
The RV World warranty representative was unable to reach an acceptable agreement with Dutchmen regarding the mattress and suggested that we personally call the manufacturer’s warranty department. I talked to a Dutchmen representative by the name of Bishop. In my first conversation, I advised him that we didn’t have confidence that we’d receive a suitable replacement from Dutchmen in time for our trip and told him we were considering having a custom mattress built. He asked me the cost of the mattress, and I told him it was $689. Bishop stated that Dutchmen paid $150 for the mattress that came in the RV, and I said I thought a $200 reimbursement would be fair. He told me there was a good possibility his superiors would approve the request, due to the time it would take to ship another mattress. He asked that we provide photos of the unsewn seams as well as the manufacturer’s label. We provided seven pictures to his email address.
I didn’t hear from Bishop for 10 days, so I called him back, and he advised me that Dutchmen was now provided with mattress covers to rectify the problem. The only problem was that they didn’t make our size mattress cover, and he was still working to resolve the problem with a reimbursement.
When I didn’t hear back, I called him again. He apologized and said that Dutchmen had been “taken over” by another company, and their policies had changed. He said I’d be receiving a mattress cover that was a nice fix to our problem. I reminded him that he’d told me earlier there wasn’t a cover for our mattress size. He said he was told they were sending us a cover. I then asked him if we would receive the cover before our Yellowstone trip, and he said, “I have no idea when you’ll receive the cover.”
Any help you can provide in this matter would be appreciated.
After Good Sam Action Line contacted Dutchmen Manufacturing on the couple’s behalf, we received the following thank-you note from Ron and Frances Bailey:
Please be advised that we received a $200 check yesterday from Dutchmen. This wouldn’t have happened without your help to bring our dispute to a fair end. Thank you for your efforts.
