Customers say this half-off RV park membership a rip off

Looking for $10 a night or 50% off RV park camping? Be careful before signing up (and paying) for a service that claims to provide such deals that many RVers say does not deliver what it promises. A Wilmington, Delaware firm that bills itself as RVParkSuperpages.com as well as UltimateRVcamping.com finds itself repeatedly denounced as a "rip off" and "scam" by RVers who say they've laid out money for a "membership" but found the RV parks said to be giving 50% discounts to "members" never heard of the service.

Here's a sampling of comments from various RV forum members:

"I ordered the RV Park SuperGuide a month ago and have had a number of problems with their service. I have emailed, left messages on their voice mail and have yet to receive a response.

"To date I have not received the $25 Camping World card they promised.

"It appears as though they are interested in communicating with you until you buy their product and then nothing."

"I paid $97/ a year ago and never got access to anything. They do not answer the phone or return messages. Do not join!"

"After doing quite a bit of research I have found that not only are the listing they promote [are] inaccurate, the parks they promote are unaware of the membership program. The listings they have for local parks in our area are mapped 1000s of miles away."

"We received an internet invitation to join a new discount camping club, similar to Passport America, for a special price of $39 for three years. The name is 'RV Park SuperGuide'. It sounded legit, and being the trusting souls we are, we took them up on the offer. BIG MISTAKE!! It is a SCAM! We have contacted several campgrounds on our intended path on our way to Gillette, WY, and none have ever heard of this club and will not honor the discount rate. One has even been closed for several years. It appears they copied campground descriptions from some other discount camping system and published them as their own."

The Internet website, www.scambook.com notes 11 complaints against SuperGuide, the most recent from this August. That complaint had the same earmarks as those written about in RV forums: "I sent them $67 for a two year membership. When I called some RV parks, they had never heard of the outfit and wouldn't honor any discount based on my 'membership' in RV Park SuperGide. My emails to them have been unanswered. I will dispute the charge with my credit card company but must wait 30 days."

When rvtravel.com editors attempted to contact this outfit earlier when doing research, our calls too, went unanswered. Here's a good case of where being a frugal RVer means keeping a death-grip on your wallet.  

RVtravel.com editor Chuck Woodbury said he joined the club to see what it was all about. "I found the information worthless," he said. "I asked for my money back, which to their credit they did refund." Woodbury also noted that when he researched the testimonials recently on the Ultimate RV Club's website, the photos of the "satisfied customers" were actually different people with no connection to the club. "One couple pictured was actually in the news when the woman returned from being stranded in the Nevada desert for 49 days. Her husband was never found, at least at the time of the news report." Woodbury reported that a check on Friday revealed all the photos have been removed including that of company chairman Walter Thompson, which a Google image search revealed was a Wisconsin neurosurgeon with a different name.

What have been your experiences? Leave a comment in our forum.

Produce stands--buyer beware!

Pursuing the RV lifestyle takes energy and some of that comes from good food. We've all seen the cost of groceries take frightening leaps, and RVers aren't immune. But our mobile lifestyle can make it easier for us to look for bargains. Where can you find great buys on produce?

Many folks swear by road-side markets and fruit stands. Fresh fruit! Good quality! Low prices! On and on go the Hosannas. Is it really so, Billy Joe?

We've been doing a bit of traveling through the Northwest and our take on the produce bargains is a mixed bag. In terms of freshness, our find is that the "at the farm" or "operated by the farmer" stands are indeed the best choice for fresh produce. In a lot of cases the price is better than anywhere else.

On the other hand, we've shopped a fair number of "produce markets" stuck up beside main highways in temporary tents (and some more permanent structures) and have been appalled by the high prices. On an expedition to put up canned green beans we hit two produce stands; they both offered us discounts for full case purchases. We settled on the one best rated in the area by Yelp! reviewers and paid a dime less per pound than the nearest competitor, meaning we whipped out $1.39 a pound for green beans.

Shame on us! When we got the beans back to our roaming canning table we found we couldn't snap the beans, as non-crispy as they were--each had to be cut with a knife. The inside of the beans were pretty hollow, and obviously the whole batch was a bit late coming off the vine. Still, we felt that somehow we'd managed to beat the price of canned beans a bit.

Alas, our thinking was wrong again. A visit to a nearby Winco store found much better quality fresh green beans for less than a buck a pound. Prices too, on fresh fruit, suitable for canning were less there than at the stands.

A couple of lessons for us: If you buy base "case lot" then open the case and inspect the contents--don't just take the word of the seller. If you have access to the Internet, you might even do well to look up produce sellers and give them a phone call to get a handle on prices--and then check against discount grocery stores for a comparison. We did the same ourselves when planning a run at fresh fruits in Central Washington--we've lined up a produce vendor in the heart of peach and pear country whose prices are in line with what we consider reality.

photos: R & T DeMaris

"Swipe fees" may swipe more from your wallet

xJason.Rogersx on flickr.com

A deal that's sweet for retailers may sour you if you're in the habit of ringing up your credit card. Credit card companies and sellers have been duking it out over fees card companies charge retailers. Now in a proposed settlement, the losers of the fight could be card users.

The issue revolves around what's called an interchange fee. Typically card companies charge retailers an average of two-percent per transaction. Grab a quick meal at Denny's for $20? Charge it on your credit card, and the restaurant pays the card processor 40 cents. Multiply this by the millions of transactions that consumers run on credit cards and you'll see somebody's making big money.

The retailers filed a suit against the card processing companies, charging that the card processors were artificially inflating the interchange fee. When the dust settled, the banks agreed to pay back $6 billion, temporarily reduce the interchange fee, and allow retailers to "stick" the consumer with the fee. Previously, two of the giants, VISA and Mastercard, would not allow merchants to 'pass along' those fees.

If the settlement is approved this doesn't automatically assure that you'll be seeing the fee added to your purchase price. Ten states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, and Texas) prohibit the passing along of so-called "swipe fees" to consumers. Some retailers fear the negative feedback from consumers and will simply "pass" on passing on the fees. Others may offer cash discounts, rather than infuriating credit card customers. And if you run your purchases on your debit card, the issue is moot--swipe fees won't apply to these purchases as far as the consumer sees them.

If some merchants decide to do the big pass-along, things could look a bit different. For RVers who are accustomed to pumping 100 gallons of fuel into their motorhome, and additional $8.00 on top of the fuel price could be a bit of a sting. It could be a while before we know the extent of damages. The matter may not clear the court system until the end of 2012.

Camping at the county fair (grounds)

Free camping at an Idaho fairground.  R&T DeMaris photo

Looking for an off-the-beaten path place to spend the night without spending a fortune? Think cotton candy and snow cones. OK, maybe you won't find these sweet-tooth pleasers when you camp, but many county fairgrounds have RV facilities available year-around at low cost. We've found a quiet place to "dry camp," at no charge; other fairgrounds offer full hookups and the clean, fresh smell of--cut grass--for twenty-something a night.

If working fairgrounds camping into your trip, it's best to do a little checking in advance. Unless there's an active event at the grounds (at which time you might not find space available) the office probably won't be keeping "RV park hours." A phone call to the fairgrounds is in order, but how do you know where to look?

A quick Internet search of "X counties" where "X" is the name of the state will often pop back an alphabetical list of counties, and sometimes even a state outline map. Pick your desired county, then search for "X county fairgrounds" and you'll quickly find the information you'll need. Some fairgrounds have their own websites with camping information right on hand; others will need a phone call to check it out.

We've found the friendliness of county fair folks to be warming. Once, when traveling through Oklahoma, we called out in advance to find out about camp site availability. The folks at the other end of the line told us their facility was small, but on hearing when we'd be arriving, send someone out to unlock the gate, show us where to stay on, and even sent the police to cruise through our area just to ensure we were "getting along all right." All that, and no charge, M'am!

Don't let your bank rob you--switch!

After suffering flash burns from heated up customers last fall, Bank of America set aside plans to charge its customers a $5 a month fee for the privilege of using a debit card. Fear not, BOA is at it again, this time with plans to gaff customers with basic checking accounts with a monthly fee.

BOA's plans include an alternative to the fee-instead-of-free plan: Bank online, buy more of our products (read that "loans") or maintain a certain bank balance. Non-profit watchdog Consumer Reports says to be on the lookout for other banks to try and play this same sort of shell game.

A lot of us in the RV lifestyle have enough financial concerns to worry about without getting gouged by banks. What's to be done? First off, don't toss out those fluffy mailings that come with your bank or credit card statements. If your bank intends to change the way they do business, they'll often stick a circular in your monthly mailing, along with piles of useless adverts. If you don't pay attention to what they're up to, you won't be able to "opt out."

If you've got your money in a commercial bank, don't hesitate to yank it out and move it to a customer-friendly organization like a credit union. Used-to-be credit unions were pretty tight to get into, say those made up of employees of specific industries or groups. These days a lot of credit unions have memberships for Joe Everyman. You'll find credit unions often have really FREE checking accounts, better interest rates on savings, and lower rates on loans--even for RVs.

Many people shy away from getting out of an abusive bank relationship, simply because they aren't sure how to proceed, or imagine it will be an ordeal worse than they're undergoing. Here's a link to easy walk-through instructions on how to make a switch http://news.consumerreports.org/Move-Your-Money.pdf

Google your way to RV repairs

In the early days when many of us were just starting our RV lifestyle, keeping our RVs repaired usually required a trip to the RV tech or mechanic knowing it was going to take a chunk out of our wallets.

Our alternate options at the time were to seek help from a friend (often more harm than help), or go to the library and pour over repair manuals--if you could find one that you needed for a particular job.

But that all changed with the internet age, especially with search engines like Google and Bing, and altruistic RVers who post clear and concise step-by-step directions, photos, even videos of everything from testing and analyzing your RV systems and appliances to completing the necessary repairs or replacements--including the tools and parts you will need to do it.

If you haven't tried it yet, the next time you have something fail, Google it. Look at several different web pages and find the one that makes the most sense to you. You will be surprised how much maintenance and repair you will be able to take care of yourself with proper instructions--as well as all the money you can save on shop repairs.

You can find more ideas and ways to save money while enjoying your RV Lifestyle with Bob Difley's ebook, 111 Ways to Get the Biggest Bang from your RV Lifestyle Buck at RVBookstore.