Heartless Heartland RVs

I thought it was time to write an update on our RV resolution, or lack thereof. I think Heartland RVs should change their name to Heartless.

If you missed our interview on the RV Show USA you can watch a commercial-free version here:

After listening to that you might think that Heartland would have finally decided to step up and do the right thing. Well, you would be wrong. They absolutely refuse to do anything to help us and for that reason I think they are the most Heartless company I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with.

Since my initial post about our Heartland woes: The Day our Heartland RV Left us Homeless I was quite overwhelmed by the response and number of comments and emails I received from people expressing their support, encouragement and also their own stories of Heartland’s lack of customer service. I want to thank all of you that took the time to comment and/or share our story as well as sending emails to Heartland on our behalf. We are so appreciative of all of you!

I am sorry I was not able to respond to every comment, but I’d like to highlight some here. I was just appalled at all of the people that let me know how they have experienced similar issues with Heartland.

Another one where Heartland wants an RV towed to Indiana which is unsafe to tow.

Yes I posted on their Facebook page until they blocked me from posting further.

We tried contacting Thor and received no response.

Side note: Thor owns Heartland as well as several other RV companies. My advice would be to stay away from any company owned by Thor.

I’m seeing a trend here.

Ditto to my last comment.

Another who agrees that they are Heartless.

This is just a small sampling and does not even include comments from all the Facebook shares. There seems to be more than just a few unhappy Heartland Heartless customers.

Since my initial post our insurance company re-opened our claim and sent a forensic engineer to inspect the unit. He proved it was not the road but was frame failure due to a broken weld and mis-aligned slide. I can’t elaborate on that at this time in case we take legal action.

Incidentally, Heartland still blames us. Just the other day I received a letter from Trailer Life Magazine. I took some of your advice that I should send them our story. They received a response from Anthony Roberts at Heartland explaining why this is not their problem. By the way, Anthony Roberts (anthony.roberts@heartlandrvs.com) was the guy I mentioned in my first blog post who lied to us about sending an inspector from Lippert. His letter was quite long so I won’t quote the whole thing, but he did say this: “It was determined that this was related to impact damage causing the twisting of the frame. One conclusion we gave was possible the unit went off the road twisting the frame and in conjunction impacting a tree limb causing the damage to the side of the unit.”

Wow! Still blaming us… sad.

Heartland’s inspector didn’t even notice the issue that the forensic engineer discovered. Could it be because he was sent there for the sole purpose of coming up with a conclusion as to why this is not Heartland’s responsibility? All he could come up with is that we went off the road and hit a tree?

I agree, what kind of business sense is there in letting this get so public?

Believe me, I wish we had hit a tree! What possible motive would we have to deny that? An insurance claim would have been much simpler if we had had an actual incident on the road that caused this. We are honest people though and are not about to lie to an insurance company and claim we hit a tree when we didn’t.

But the good news is that on 9/20/2018 Heartland said they’re launching an initiative to boost quality and service. You can read all about it here: Heartland RV launches initiatives to boost quality, service. When I read that I thought “oh good, they can start by helping us, right?” Wrong!

Here is a snippet of some of the quotes from the article:

Isn’t that nice? Heartland President Chris Hermon says he recognizes the need to be accessible to customers. I wonder why he hasn’t bothered to respond to any of my countless emails to him. If you feel like sending him a note here is his email, but don’t expect an answer: chris.hermon@heartlandrvs.com.

And Jim Fenner was quoted in the article about having an obligation to stand out and be leaders in the areas of customer service. Hmm, we haven’t noticed any of that “customer service”. His email is fennerj@heartlandrvs.com if you feel like reaching out.

They posted that article on their Facebook page and I decided to comment on it, but guess what? My comment was deleted and I was blocked from posting anymore on their page. A friend of mine who also owns a Heartland did the same thing and her comments were also deleted and she was blocked. We decided to let some friends know how we had been blocked from Heartland’s Facebook page, so several of them decided to comment on our behalf. I’m sure you see where this is headed… yup their comments were also deleted.

So if you are relying on Heartland’s Facebook page to find out if their customers are happy, you’re only getting one side of the story. Negative comments are deleted.

In addition to their article claiming quality and customer service, their website advertises this:

Their definition of “longevity” must differ from mine because an RV that only lasts 3.5 years does not meet that standard.

Several people commented to say we should contact Lippert since they make the frame. Below is the response we got.

Email reply from Lippert.

We have no idea what is meant by “the course of action that is to take place”, but notice who is in the Cc: line? Our good friend Anthony Roberts is at it again!

Some have asked if we have an extended warranty. The answer is yes we do. Our dealer in Jacksonville, FL, Dick Gore’s RV World sold it to us. However, we regret purchasing that because it has been useless. They don’t cover much of anything, and especially not something like frame failure.

Thank you to everyone who offered other pieces of advice like hire a lawyer, file complaints with the attorney general, BBB, NHTSA, Trailer Life, etc. We did all of that so far except hire a lawyer. We have consulted with a couple of lawyers and are still undecided about whether or not to move forward with that. There would be a lot of time and expense involved which is probably why so many people don’t bother. That means the big companies such as this one get away with this nonsense because it’s so difficult for the little guys to fight them.

These past 3+ months have been so stressful and have really taken a toll on our family. I have had so many sleepless nights and felt sick over this for too long. There is a huge part of me that just wants to “let it go” and move on with our lives. I’m so tired of the emotional energy this is taking.

If we choose not to pursue legal action this RV will most likely be hauled off to a junk yard in the near future. If any of you would like to go pick it up and put it on a lowboy trailer as suggested in the comments above, please feel free. While you’re at it, please take it to the Tampa RV Show in January. It would be an effective advertisement on the shoddy workmanship of Heartless RVs at one of the biggest RV shows in the country.

If we do decide to just let this go and move on, that doesn’t mean we can’t keep sharing our story. We want to warn as many people as possible against purchasing from this Heartless company or anything made by their parent company Thor. My first blog post was seen by well over 30K viewers. Please do me a favor and share this one too. Let’s get the word out to stay away from this company.

In closing, I don’t want all of my blog posts to be about this negative experience we are having with Heartland. Recently the 4 of us watched our Nomadiversary videos from our 3 years on the road and reminisced about why we live this way. We love the RV lifestyle and we love seeing this beautiful country we live in. We have had a temporary setback. This video right here shows the good stuff. This right here is why we do this, why it’s worth it and why we’re anxious to continue on with this incredible lifestyle. I also love the song If Today Was Your Last Day. I got to thinking, if today was my last day I certainly wouldn’t be wasting any more time on this Heartless company. I hope you enjoy this video of our 3rd year on the road and let it be a reminder that the RV lifestyle really is good in spite of bad companies.

Thank you for watching and listening. I hope to resume posts about our travels again very soon. 🙂

UPDATE: an update to this post can be viewed here: Heartland Stands by Ludicrous Lippert Report