Bourne Leisure are not going to like owners putting their thought's, feeling's and home truth's about the B L company and its policies or the bad practises it employs, on the internet for the whole world to see. It could possibly harm B L through their caravan sales by lack of sales from new owners, or even stop current owners from upgrading their present caravans.
Personally I feel that this would be a good thing to happen, sort of as a way for owners to get back at them, for what they are doing to us owners. Your site is a way for owners on all B L Parks, to get their thought's across to other owners, and may in some way help to make B L sit up and notice that we have had enough.
They can sweep it under the carpet and cover it up on individual parks, but not so with the internet.
It would be hard for all owners to get together as a group to voice their feelings, but sites like yours, can only help to unite the owners around the country, against the Bourne Leisure Regime.
regards
Firstly I would like to draw people's attention to Bourne Leisure's little money making scam with the "disappearing" metal steps. We had a verandah built to complete our caravan which we purchased last year. While it was being built the steps to the front door were placed under the caravan as they were no longer needed and we decided that we would sell them having paid for them in our initial purchase of the caravan. They were listed as £135.60 for the two sets on the original invoice.Mysteriously the steps under the caravan disappeared. We went to the Owners reception and asked for them to be returned. The person we spoke to in turn got on the phone to someone on site and explained that we wanted them back. They never appeared, so we sent Bourne Leisure a letter. Still no responce. Finally when we paid the bill for the verandah we deducted £65 for the missing steps. Since then this amount has appeared as owing on our account but we have said that it's not going to be paid and finally threatened them with a Solicitor for theft !!
It's a great little earner for someone on the Primrose Valley site, taking steps that don't belong to them, selling them on to the next caravan owner and pocketing the money. We spoke to another caravan owner who had the same thing happen to them, but their attitude was "Oh well, we didn't want them anyway", which is why they're getting away with it. We wondered if anyone else has had a similar experience to ourselves on any other site ?
On to something different now. How many other owners have been constantly pestered with letters and phone calls about upgrading immediately after buying their caravan ? We bought ours early last year and ever since then have been asked about upgrading or buying another caravan to rent out !! One of the Sales team on our site was heard to say when he failed to get a positive response " It doesn't matter, there's another MUG round every corner" which I think says it all about BL's attitude.
What we would like to know is how people make it pay to rent out their caravans through BL as we cannot see how anyone makes a profit. We bought our caravan for cash and to be used by ourselves/family/friends. From what we can gather speaking to other people who do rent through BL, at least 50% of rental income is deducted by them and obviously the money is in their account earning interest. Also they are often paying off a loan taken out to purchase it in the first place. This is great for BL as they encourage people to buy one or more caravans then treat them as their own. BL don't have to buy any caravans, just take bookings and reap most of the profits.
We heard about a couple whose caravan had been rented out one week by BL for the princely sum of £90... they ended up owing BL for that week.We would like someone who rents out through BL to let us know how much they are making out of this arrangement each year, because we cannot see how they are making a profit, especially taking into account the depreciation of their asset !!
Hope I've not gone on too much, but once I get started on the subject of Bourne Leisure it's very difficult to stop !
