EDITORIAL

Shady People from Shady Places

Here's the scenario . . .

You are an established RV dealer and have worked hard over the years in your local market to build name recognition for both your business and those brands you are franchised to sell. You've carried the burden of floor planing costs, carrying insurance, meeting payrolls, providing customer service and weathered the storms of a volatile industry with all its ups and downs. But you have built a solid business and now you are reaping the rewards of all your hard work and investment.

Then a new guy moves into town, rents a room, installs a telephone, puts up a web site, and then contacts you and tells you he's going to start selling your franchised brands of RVs to your customer base and offers to do it through your dealership. And he warns if you don't go along with the program he's going to sell the brand anyway but through one of your competitors in another market. And he repeats his story to every dealer in the surrounding area.

Now I don't know about you, but if this kind of thing

happened in the small Southern Illinois town where I grew up, chances are this unwelcome intruder would be labeled the no good reprobate that he is and then tarred, feathered and finally run out of town on a rail -- if he were lucky.

In case you haven't recognized him yet, you may want to look closely at the shingle he tacked up outside his rented room, "RV Broker."

And the only reason these low-lifes survive, the only reason, is that some RV dealer somewhere is willing to sell product through RV brokers. To be honest, it makes absolutely no sense to us for a dealer to participate in this sleazy business. Moreover, I cannot imagine any RV manufacturer worth its salt that would allow a dealer to continue representing a brand once it is discovered that they have sold through an RV broker.

I don't have any RV brokers as close personal friends nor have I ever invited one over for dinner and admittedly I have only had casual contact with them individually; however, I have drawn some conclusions based on the information I have.

First, I think they are frauds and operate under the "big lie." They have to convince the RV buyer that either they are too stupid to negotiate on their own with RV dealers, or else the dealer is simply not to be trusted and since he (the broker) knows all the dealer's secrets, then he can better represent their interests. The more typical scenario is that the broker calls the dealer and says, "Give me a quote on this or that unit and add in an extra $500 in it for me." So it's not only the dealer that's getting a raw deal, it's the consumer too.

Second, I think RV brokers are failures, trying this scam before they move on to their next failure. They must be or else they wouldn't be motivated by 'get rich quick" schemes and would start a business and work at it the old fashioned way, by making the necessary effort in money, time, effort and brains. But no, they would rather ride the coattails of legitimate RV dealers. And as far as qualifications, most only claim that they were an RV salesperson for some dealership or possibly a rep for an RV manufacturer. Chances are they couldn't cut it and were let go. But, of course, they "knew more than their supervisors" and became experts and now want to protect the 'poor consumer" from the bad old RV dealer. What a laugh.

RV brokers have always been around, but the Internet has brought more and more of them out of their dark hiding places. It is easy for them to get a domain name, put up a web site that adds credibility to their scam, and then start perpetrating their evil scheme.

There is really no need for RV brokers in this industry, in our opinion. They are a drain on the profitability of all dealers and manufacturers. They are scamming the consumer and for the life of me I cannot fathom why any RV dealer or RV manufacturer would give them the time of day, let alone let them bastardize the territorial franchise system which is the foundation of a strong, successful industry.

So the next time an RV broker emerges from the shadows, and says, "Hey buddy, want to sell an RV?" simply ignore them. Your business will be stronger for taking a moral stand on these types of characters and the whole industry will be better off when these types have moved on to their next scam - outside the RV industry.

That's our opinion, what's yours?

RVN