American Dream Vacations Rv rental scam Houston Texas

I am well aware of this customer and to call us dishonest in this case is foolish. I will provide the real story and the back up to go along with it.

First of all we do not take 4 hours to check customer in and out. We rent between 15-45 RV’s in any given week. If we took 4 hours per unit we would have to be open 24 hours a day.

Sometimes when a customer is not familiar with an RV we take an extra 30 – 45 minutes but our whole process takes about an hour to an hour and a half from paperwork to walk through.

In the “three months later” there are several pieces of the story missing. Prior to every customer leaving our lot we always take a video of the unit (in front of the customer) and then again when the customer returns. This makes the process of fault on damage indisputable.

The customers returned the unit and the damage was clearly new and the customer was made aware of it. We even reviewed the video for the damages and the customer’s spouse actually states verbally what they had damaged in the video check-in.

We filed a claim with their insurance company and their insurance adjuster came out and reviewed the damages and video herself. The adjuster even laughed and remarked how easy it was to close since the customer had admitted to the damages in the video.

Once the adjuster left we waited for the result but the insurance company informed us that they could not pay the claim because this customer had told them not to pay it. It didn’t matter how much time had passed, the video was taken the day they were here. At this point we still needed to collect on the damages so we decided that instead of just charging their credit card, we would have a judge decide the outcome so they could have their day in court.

Once they realized that they could not tell a lie to a judge, they agreed to let their insurance company pay the claim. We did not “settle” by any means. When the insurance company attorney called us, we gave him the original amount and they paid it without question due to the substantial amount of proof.

They would not, however, pay for the customers overages in mileage or the court fees it cost us to file against him. We do not assume costs we incur when chasing money owed to us by a customer, these charges are passed on to the customer.

Damages to a unit are not “add on charges”. We subcontract a body shop to do our repairs and do not profit from damage done to a unit. In fact, we lose money in the downtime the unit is being repaired and do not charge for this either.

For the record there is no money lost in fighting a civil court trial. All you have to do is show up and plead your case for about 20 minutes. If this customer had truly thought they were right, a simple 20 minute trial would have solved the matter.

The truth is we had indisputable proof that the damage had been done on their rental and they thought they could just deny us payment and we would go away.

We are not a “bad company with bad policies”. In fact, we read every line of our contract policies to our customers so we are clear about responsibility of damages.

We have worked very hard over the past 7 years in growing our business to become the largest RV rental company in Houston and surrounding areas. We are an honest upstanding business in the community and enjoy our A rating with the BBB for 7 years running.

If there is ever question concerning this case or any of our procedures of doing business, I will be glad to provide any and all documentation to show that we are an honorable and ethical business with solid principles. We work hard to take care of each and every one of our customers so that we may become the best in the business.