False Advertising by Camping World & Good Sam

[SusanDallas]

Any attorneys out there? I recently renewed my membership with Good Sam club because they offered free shipping from Camping World. This was the only reason I renewed.

Two weeks ago, I received a new catalog from Camping World. The catalog was good through May 6, 2018. On the back cover of the catalog, it states Good Sam Club members receive Free Shipping All Day - Every Day at CampingWorld.com.

What a pack of lies! I was told by a Good Sam representative that they no longer stand by this offer even though I only renewed my membership last month.

When I tried to place an order at Camping World, they wanted to charge me over $11 for shipping. When I mentioned the free shipping stated on the back of their catalog, they told me they had changed their minds & the offer is no longer available. They only honored the free shipping for about 10 days.

I wish I hadn't renewed my membership for the Good Sam roadside assistance as well. I will not be renewing next year. How can you trust companies that offer services to customers and then not honor them? What will they change their minds on next? They may decide to not honor free tows as well. I have lost all my respect for these two companies. This is a shameful way to treat customers.

[Good_Sam_Care_T]

Hello,

I am closing this topic due to lack of activity. Thank you for your time and participating. Please feel free to open a new thread on this topic in the future if you wish.

Thank you,
Ella
Good Sam Care Team

[Roo]

Buyer beware.............

[Ralph_Cramden]

SusanDallas wrote:
Follow Up:
Stacy from Good Sam had requested that I send her a private e-mail. I immediately did so and also sent her my cell phone number. Now I know why she wanted to keep it private. She has never responded back to me.

That has been my experience as well. The canned offer of help posted publicly, the sound of silence privately.


People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence. - Paul and Art or Ella and Stacey?

[SusanDallas]

Follow Up:
Stacy from Good Sam had requested that I send her a private e-mail. I immediately did so and also sent her my cell phone number. Now I know why she wanted to keep it private. She has never responded back to me.

[toedtoes]

I agree with that. We had a local camera shop that would get people coming in, asking questions, testing cameras and lenses, and then buying online elsewhere. That's wrong. They had a big banner outside the store that said "we are not an amazon showroom" - sad that they were treated as such.

If I went in to the local store to ask a question, test a product, etc., then I bought it from that store. The higher price compensated them for their help and hands on opportunity.

But I don't "window shop" as entertainment either. If I'm in a store, it's because I want/need something there. I don't go in "just to look" or "kill time" and such. So places like camping world don't see me because I don't need any RV specific gear and everything else I can find at grocery, department or drug stores at a lower cost and where I have to go to get something else anyway.

[Lantley]

You guys crack me up. Using their stores as a showroom to touch and feel the merchandise with no intention on buying it there OK. However printing free delivery with policy subject to change directly below is deceitful.
At the end of the day you deserve each other.

For the record I have no CW's near me but I do have Ace hardware and other smaller merchants that I patronize because I want to see them succeed.
I want a local hardware store in my neighborhood.
Yes I know Depot and the Big Box stores are cheaper than Ace. But buying decisions are not always based on money.
Yes I price shop but I also make a deliberately attempt to spend my money locally when possible.

[1968mooney]

🙂

toedtoes wrote:

Farmboy666 wrote:
I guess the fact that they’re still advertising it and it’s over can be seen as deceitful but they’re not about to trash the catalogs because of it. Like I said I’m not a fan and don’t shop there but at the end of the day we’re all big boys and sadly you have to watch your back. If enough people would stop shopping there they would maybe change, we can only vote with our money.

If the flyers were made before the decision to end the free shipping option, then that would be true. That is the sort of thing the disclaimer notice protects against - the cost to reprint the flyers may be too cost prohibitive.

However, if CW is continuing to print NEW flyers after ending the free shipping and still advertising the free shipping on those new flyers, then that is false advertising. It is their responsibility to advertise correct information to a reasonable extent.

Not changing a flyer that was just printed in bulk a month ago for a sale if reasonable - no false advertising.

Repeatedly reprinting bad information on different flyers is not reasonable - it is easy enough to remove those two words "free shipping" from the first page of a new print job. To not remove those words is falsely advertising.

??

[toedtoes]

Farmboy666 wrote:
I guess the fact that they’re still advertising it and it’s over can be seen as deceitful but they’re not about to trash the catalogs because of it. Like I said I’m not a fan and don’t shop there but at the end of the day we’re all big boys and sadly you have to watch your back. If enough people would stop shopping there they would maybe change, we can only vote with our money.

If the flyers were made before the decision to end the free shipping option, then that would be true. That is the sort of thing the disclaimer notice protects against - the cost to reprint the flyers may be too cost prohibitive.

However, if CW is continuing to print NEW flyers after ending the free shipping and still advertising the free shipping on those new flyers, then that is false advertising. It is their responsibility to advertise correct information to a reasonable extent.

Not changing a flyer that was just printed in bulk a month ago for a sale if reasonable - no false advertising.

Repeatedly reprinting bad information on different flyers is not reasonable - it is easy enough to remove those two words "free shipping" from the first page of a new print job. To not remove those words is falsely advertising.

[Farmboy666]

I guess the fact that they’re still advertising it and it’s over can be seen as deceitful but they’re not about to trash the catalogs because of it. Like I said I’m not a fan and don’t shop there but at the end of the day we’re all big boys and sadly you have to watch your back. If enough people would stop shopping there they would maybe change, we can only vote with our money.

[toedtoes]

Farmboy666 wrote:

DownTheAvenue wrote:
Back to the subject of the thread:

This is very typical of anything from Camping World Holdings, which also includes Good Sam. The company is all about generating revenue without regard to building any relationship with a customer. The customer, to thm, is merely a source of revenue to be mined or exploited.

To the OP: I am an attorney, and if the pictures of the catalogs are correct, the disclaimers allow them to be deceitful. They in essence offered you free shipping and then immediately revoked the offer. Legal? Probably. Ethical? Absolutely not!

I am not a fan of CW but if they put it right there in writing for you to see how is that deceitful?

Because on page one they state you get free shipping as a member. In much smaller print further back, they state that "member benefits...are subject to change without prior notice" - if the company puts both those statements on every flyer and tells people "we don't offer that anymore" when they try using it, then they are being deceitful. In that situation, they are using the benefit of "free shipping" to lure people in only to say "so sorry" once they get them.

It's very similar to the old bait & hook schemes advertising a too good to be true discount for something of which they never had stock only to tell the customer "we don't have any more of those, but here's a lesser product at a much less reduced price".

I would suspect that if it can be proven that the flyers are being produced with the "free shipping" statement but the free shipping has never been given to any customers at any time during any time frame identified by the flyers that a court could see it as false advertising. Disclaimers like that are to protect the store from having to take a major loss on a misprint etc. Not to string people along with a false promise.

[DownTheAvenue]

Farmboy666 wrote:

DownTheAvenue wrote:
Back to the subject of the thread:

This is very typical of anything from Camping World Holdings, which also includes Good Sam. The company is all about generating revenue without regard to building any relationship with a customer. The customer, to thm, is merely a source of revenue to be mined or exploited.

To the OP: I am an attorney, and if the pictures of the catalogs are correct, the disclaimers allow them to be deceitful. They in essence offered you free shipping and then immediately revoked the offer. Legal? Probably. Ethical? Absolutely not!

I am not a fan of CW but if they put it right there in writing for you to see how is that deceitful?

It is deceitful, in my opinion, because they lure in a customer with the headlines of free shipping when they never had the intent of offering free shipping. Then they continue to distribute catalogs with the free shipping headline when they no longer offer it.

It would not be deceitful if they had offered free shipping for some time, and then made a business decision to stop the practice and at the same time quit distributing information about the free shipping.

[Farmboy666]

DownTheAvenue wrote:
Back to the subject of the thread:

This is very typical of anything from Camping World Holdings, which also includes Good Sam. The company is all about generating revenue without regard to building any relationship with a customer. The customer, to thm, is merely a source of revenue to be mined or exploited.

To the OP: I am an attorney, and if the pictures of the catalogs are correct, the disclaimers allow them to be deceitful. They in essence offered you free shipping and then immediately revoked the offer. Legal? Probably. Ethical? Absolutely not!

I am not a fan of CW but if they put it right there in writing for you to see how is that deceitful?

[DownTheAvenue]

Back to the subject of the thread:

This is very typical of anything from Camping World Holdings, which also includes Good Sam. The company is all about generating revenue without regard to building any relationship with a customer. The customer, to thm, is merely a source of revenue to be mined or exploited.

To the OP: I am an attorney, and if the pictures of the catalogs are correct, the disclaimers allow them to be deceitful. They in essence offered you free shipping and then immediately revoked the offer. Legal? Probably. Ethical? Absolutely not!

[RobWNY]

Lantley wrote:

RobWNY wrote:
I get a good laugh out of going to the Camping World Store closest to me. My wife and I wander through the store and take a photo with our phone of the things we would like to buy and then go home and buy them on Amazon or some other online retailer. Why? Because every single "RV Thingamajig" we're interested in at Camping world goes something like this....Price $29.95 followed by Good Same Member price of $26.95 A savings of $3.00! Then we go home, I go online and find the exact same thing for $14.95 and free shipping. It's all a scam.

This brings up an interesting thought. How much should CW charge to allow you to browse their products? Should they continue to be Amazon's showroom for free?

I don't know Lantley. Interesting question. You're the first person I've heard of that doesn't price shop. When you know a company overcharges for everything they sell, why would you pay that price for the product? If you know for a fact that you can buy the exact same thing someplace else cheaper, whether online or at another Brick and Mortar store, do you always buy the item at the more expensive price?