Negative: Bill Thomas Camper Sales, Wentzville MO

[wmuav8tor]

This is my review I posted on google after purchasing my Salem 196BH back in March. Like I said in my review, I do claim partial responsibility for not getting an agreement in writing. Tony at Bill Thomas Campers is a scumbag. Everyone else was actually pretty pleasant to work with though.



I am an airline pilot who lives in Michigan and is based in St. Louis. I had been researching travel trailers for over a year at this point and finally settled on what model I wanted. The model I wanted was discontinued so I had to find one that was already at a dealer with as many of the options installed that I wanted as possible. I found BT Camper Sales on RV Trader while searching the model number. They had the model I wanted and almost all the options I wanted, the ones they didn't I could live without. The next time I was in St. Louis for work, I drove over to check out the trailer. My salesman's name was Tony. I told him I was interested in purchasing the Salem 196BH that they had, in addition I told him I wanted two Maxxair fans installed.

I brought up to Tony that I would also like a TV antenna installed because I noticed this trailer did not have one. I was hoping to get a break on installation fees or purchase price of the antenna. Tony kept insisting that it had an antenna. I pointed out that there was no crank anywhere for an antenna and that there was no booster in the wall. He kept insisting that the antenna was installed, but just “in the travel position so I couldn't see it”. I told him I really wanted an antenna on my trailer, it was one of my "must have" things. Finally he said "if there is no antenna, we will install one free of charge, because Salem's all come with them" I asked him several times to confirm that they would install one free of charge if it didn't have one. He kept saying yes, so I shook his hand and agreed to the purchase.

I went home to Michigan and got my truck, drove it down to St. Louis and took delivery on March 1st 2017. During my walk through with the PDI Tech, I noticed there was still no antenna, I brought this up to the tech and he climbed up and confirmed there was not a TV antenna installed. He sent someone off to go and "get things figured out" shortly after that, Tony and another guy walked up. Tony then proceeded to tell me that he never agreed to install an antenna free of charge, and then told me they are "only standard on the bigger models" he then also preceded to tell me that I must have misunderstood what he was saying. I know as a fact that I understood what he was saying, I even asked him several times to confirm to me that they would install one free of charge before I shook his hand to agree to the purchase.

I have to personally accept some of the blame for this, because I thought a handshake would be good enough, I should have gotten that promise in writing and I learned that the hard way. In the end, they agreed to install one at "their cost" ($225) that still wasn't acceptable to me, but I had already signed the paperwork so I couldn't refuse the trailer anymore. That is another hard learned lesson.

Everyone else I worked with at BT Camper Sales was great to work with and personable, but Tony really soured my purchase and I am not sure if I will ever consider purchasing from here again because of that. Several of the people there that I talked to told me that "Tony is new and doesn't always know what he is doing"

If you decide to purchase from this dealer, do not use Tony as your salesman. He has lost my trust and I would not recommend him to anyone.

[SeaDog]

Experience is a tough teacher she gives the test first and the lesson later.

[Bikersarge]

Sounds like Camping World in Hamburg N.Y, Drove up there to pick ours up because they are wholesale. Told the salesman I would like to see everything fired up and running. When I got there the 5er wasn't even plugged in, no water, no frig on....nothing. The salesman tried to send us to the finance office but I replied I wasn't going there till I tested everything and he said well the frig takes about 4-5 hrs to get cool, I said well sir the day is young and will will be here all week. He was not happy but the trailer was a 2013 used.