Good reasons to arrange your financing either thru the dealership or your local bank or credit union. The sellers in your instance have no actual idea if they will actually get paid with a loan pending approval. From Essex (Bank of the West) point of view, they need to do their due diligence that they are actually financing an RV with adequate collateral value. That does take time, especially when you are dealing with an individual buyer and seller. A private seller could be selling a rig with a rebuilt title or the buyer could be buying a wrecked rig looking to get a big cash rebate from the seller.
Dealerships have relationships with their lenders, so the lenders accept the fact that the collateral is as described and the deal is on the up and up. Your local bank or credit union has a level of trust with you, again eliminating some of the risk associated with dealing with two completely unknown parties. What the OP is trying to do is just going to be slower than other methods of funding a purchase. It isn't incompetence, it is just the way things work in the real world.
