BREAKING NEWS -Law Enforcement Says General RV Committed Crimes Against Customers!

Many General RV customers could have been faced with the repo man showing up for their RV only halfway through the life of their loans.

Earlier this year, an investigation into the company took place and unveiled a shocking discovery that several customers were unaware of. Stranger still, with things going the wrong way, the company and the employees involved are not being charged with any crimes. Let’s unfold this interesting story so that you can see what has taken place.

The Discovery of the Mistake

While reviewing the contract for your RV, Lisa Pueblo found a “smudge” on her copy of her contract. Pueblo reported she was under the impression that she had 20 years, or 240 months, to pay off her RV. The carbon copy of the contract instead showed 119 months of regular payments and then one large balloon payment for number 120. This would cut the number of years to pay off the RV in half and was not what she had agreed to. Several other locations on the contract state payments of 240 months, but the one place where it was typed over states 119 months of payments. Additionally, the math for the final payment does not add up or make sense, which causes another discrepancy. According to the contract with 119 months of payments on it, Pueblo would be responsible for one single payment of $63,000 as her final payment for her RV.

Because she found the discrepancy, she felt other contracts were probably doctored in the same way, and this company and the story should be investigated, and so it was. Once the investigation began, things began to unravel for General RV in Draper, Utah.

Dozens of Customer Contracts Were Affected

When the investigation began, several customers of General RV came forward with their loan documents to show they had been smudged/doctored in the same way. The mistake was a consistent one with the 240 months of payments replaced by 119 months and a balloon payment on all contracts from 2013 to 2015. The customer copies all show the 240 payments, with the carbon copy being smudged to show 119, but that’s not the case for other copies of the paperwork.

The documents sent to the banks showed no typed-over area or smudge, but instead clearly show 119 and the final balloon payment that would be due as the 120thpayment on the RVs purchased. This sent the Utah State Tax Commission into a whirl to investigate the story further and find the truth of the matter.

Software Being Blamed

Some of the General RV employees of the Draper location attempted to blame outdated computer software for the problem. They stated that a taped piece of paper over the documents that were printed altered the carbon copy the customers received. One employee told investigators that thousands of deals were done this way, but the intention was never to deceive the customer. While this is not a reasonable explanation for the documents being changed, even stranger parts of this story are about to unfold.

No One Charged with a Crime

The names of the four employees that were responsible for changing the paperwork for many customers from 2013-215 are not being publicly released. None of them still work for General RV, but some still work in the financing industry. You might expect to find some of them charged with crimes, put behind bars, or at least have their names released publicly, but the employees and the company were able to avoid prosecution.

How is No One Held Accountable?

Sometimes the laws of a state don’t make any sense to the rest of the world. The contracts for these RVs were for at least 120 months, 240 if you look at the original customer copies, and shouldn’t that timeframe be the one used to determine whether wrongdoing was committed or not? According to Utah state law, charges of communications fraud must be filed within four years of the loan being issued. This clearly puts all of these loans outside of this statute of limitation and beyond any charges that could have been filed.

Since the complaint took place in early 2021, the investigation that was handled by the Motor Vehicle Enforcement Division for the General RV employees and the company could go no further than to say that wrongdoing had taken place, but no charges could be filed. The investigation did go further and checked all loan documents for the past four years to ensure there weren’t any discrepancies on these loans.

Hopefully, the practice of doctoring these documents wasn’t something that took place on loans that ended with customers having their RVs repossessed because they somehow fell outside of the investigations of the state.

A Happier Ending than Might Have Been

Thankfully, once the investigation uncovered the discrepancies on the paperwork for several customers, the financial institutions holding the loans did the right thing. These institutions worked with the RV owners to refinance their balloon payments and create a payment structure that is clear, easily understood, and allows the owners to continue payments for the 240 months rather than cutting the loans in half. This certainly was the right thing to do and allowed these RV owners to keep the vehicles they love to use when traveling around the country.

A Lesson Learned that We Can All Understand

When you sign loan documents for a home, car, or any other property that you’re making payments on, be sure to check all copies of the contracts to ensure consistency. There shouldn’t be any discrepancies in the paperwork, but if you find them, bring up the issues right away. Had Lis Pueblo found her discrepancy within four years of the loan being issued, General RV and the four employees responsible for the errors could have been charged with crimes. As it stands now, thanks to the financial institutions, the customers that were impacted have been made whole.