Bye Bye CAMC

[Molly A]

Scumbags . Thank you for posting this . The CAMC don’t look after their staff and therefore these instances will continue to occur .We will not be renewing our membership to either club this year . The Funster rallies and private sites are the route we will take . That said , the more Lenny HB posts his travel blogs, the more temptation I have to just go over to France and Spain and see what happens. I have lost all interest in being a member of a U.K. club .

Just go... if you do I doubt that touring in the UK will seem that attractive any more....

 

[Feltwell]

Ideally I would like them to offer a lower subscription to use CL’s with a slight reduction in large sites.

Won’t happen I know but I generally don’t do large sites.

You can have a much lower subscription and still use CL's - no subscription at all! In a good number of years I've only ever known one CL ask for a membership card. The CL's don't change much so once you've got the site book hang onto it. They're pretty much all on the UKCampsite website anyway, with contact details.

 

[Molly A]

We don't very often use sites but one thing that stands out is rude wardens appear to be a British thing.
On our current trip we have stopped on a camper stop and two sites in Spain on all of them the staff are really friendly and make you feel really welcome such a contrast.

Agreed Lenny, nothing but lovely people so far in France, Switzerland Italy and Greece. Having said that, we have only toured once in the UK, in Dorset and Devon last year in CAMC sites and all the wardens were very nice and helpful, but it was in early May so perhaps they hadn't had time to get beitter and twisted!

 

[billym]

Earlier This year, Norfolk wardens were abrupt to us too. We arrived 12noon but check in not till 1pm. I was told so in no uncertain terms by mrs angry and she looked stressed as having to do her cleaning jobs whilst mr not so angry emptied bins and mowed grass. They said I could leave the van in the check in area, go for a walk or to the pub ( the dog inn) & return at 1pm. We came back at 12:50 to find a queue of checkins behind us & guess what, Mrs Angry had started checking in before 1pm! Beggars belief. Anyway, whilst her attitude was not acceptable we remain members simply because we have access to the CL’s which we much prefer when available. We won’t be going back to that main site again though.

I wonder if you would have whinged if they had let you in an hour early before they had finished their chores only for you to find half cleaned toilets/ half cut grass or half emptied bins

Staff at Pembrey CAMC redeemed themselves after an initial misunderstanding, with helpful info and not being concerned that we'd parked Bursty slightly "off peg" (hardstanding) due to wanting to get the hab. door slightly closer to the grass so doggy didn't hurt her paws (we have a mat but it's only about 3 feet wide).

That's a new one on me.....our mat isn't big enough and the doggy doesn't want to hurt it's paws!

 

[Lenny HB]

Scumbags . Thank you for posting this . The CAMC don’t look after their staff and therefore these instances will continue to occur .We will not be renewing our membership to either club this year . The Funster rallies and private sites are the route we will take . That said , the more Lenny HB posts his travel blogs, the more temptation I have to just go over to France and Spain and see what happens. I have lost all interest in being a member of a U.K. club .

I really don't understand what it is with UK sites don't like their customers, charge silly money for pitches.
We are actually on a site in Spain at the moment don't normally use sites. All the staff are plesent and polite, constantly going around emptying the bins trimming trees and weeding they have at least ten staff all nice.
Costing us £16.50 a night quite a bit cheaper in the winter. A bit expensive by our standards.

And just to wind Swifter up, bar just outside the side but owned by them, cheap beer and a really good band playing last night, we staggered back in the early hours.

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[Molly A]

just one thing to add...I had occasion to speak to their customer services last year. We had left home to drive to Newhaven for the ferry and as we were passing Pompy my other half realised he had left his covid vacs cert at home. Handbrake turn, drive back to the New Forest while I frantically rang CAMC to change booking, battling with an awful breaking up phone signal. They could not have been lovelier, calling me a when the signal broke and cut us off, rebooking us and being generally lovely, helpful and sweet. Clearly customer service is alive and well in some parts of the organisation.

 

[whingyraindrop]

When we initially became motorhomers I joined both clubs. The first year, or so, we used club sites in England. The third year we decided to venture to Scotland. We arrived at a club site, a lovely location, next to a Loch. I attempted to book for two nights. I was told I could only stay for one night, and that was because someone had left early. It was pointed out to me that, that this site gets fully booked in January, when booking opens, ( I had been unaware of that) and that getting any nights on this particular site was ‘as rare as rocking horse shit and you should thank your lucky stars to get one night’. Booking ahead wasn’t the kind of travelling I could do, so I made a mental note to leave that club.
Later, on the same trip, we visited a site belonging to the ‘other’ club. I asked to book in for four nights. The site was almost empty (I think it was early April). I requested a pitch next to the water and was told ‘those pitches are for people that have booked ahead, not for the likes of you, just turning up’, or words to that effect. I was given one of the worst pitches on the site. The waterside pitches remained vacant during my stay. I decided then to not renew my membership of the second club.

On the way home I rang ahead to book into a club site in the midlands for the May bank holiday weekend. I was informed that they were fully booked, and had been since January. When driving by, a week or so later, I stopped to enquire if they had space. I was told that this ‘fully booked’ site had 19 ‘no shows’ due to the bad weather.

The next year I found Europe, free camping, pub stops, etc etc. and
The ‘clubs’ haven’t been something I’ve even thought about for the last ten years, or so.

 

[GMLS]

This tread has reminded (me equally frustrated with the 2 main clubs service levels) that I was going to post something in praise of Britstops. I know many will say you don't need to join in order to find pubs that will allow stop overs but personally, I'm happy to reward those that have made the effort to pull something together to make the whole process simpler

Anyway, while we patiently await the delivery of our replacement motorhome, we are using our classic VW for the occasional night away for a break. We have to time this with our teenage son spending a night away as we can't yet trust him to be alone at home without leaving the oven on, lights blaring etc. Anyway, Mrs C rang a few of our favourite campsites to enquire about a night away on a Friday night recently. The weather was very pleasant so campsites were either fully booked or they wanted us to book 2 nights. The average cost was £35 per night (Surrey or Sussex prices). We decided on a Britstop instead and found a great option only 15 miles away. So we had 2 or 4 alcoholic drinks, 2 great meals, very friendly hosts, a wonderful peaceful nights sleep and a lovely walk in the bluebell woods all or £40.

 

[Molly A]

Long time member and always had good experiences.
Unfortunately poor customer service can happen anywhere.
Regardless of being in the customer service industry we’re all human and none of us are perfect.
You don’t know what their personal circumstances are and what the cause of their unhelpful behaviour was.
Just accept it and move on, or cancel your membership and go elsewhere, it‘s a free country.
Moaning doesn’t help.

Disagree, businesses need to know if their customer service is bad. In a previous life I was head of customer service and business retention for a large insurance company and complaints analysis was a major part of my job. The best way of learning about any issues was to pick up the phone, talk to the customer and determine where the service broke down, people, processes or both. Only then can you take the actions you need to sort it out.

 

[Beltie]

just one thing to add...I had occasion to speak to their customer services last year. We had left home to drive to Newhaven for the ferry and as we were passing Pompy my other half realised he had left his covid vacs cert at home. Handbrake turn, drive back to the New Forest while I frantically rang CAMC to change booking, battling with an awful breaking up phone signal. They could not have been lovelier, calling me a when the signal broke and cut us off, rebooking us and being generally lovely, helpful and sweet. Clearly customer service is alive and well in some parts of the organisation.

That's exactly my experience as well. They screwed up a ferry booking of mine, held up their hands straight away, put things right and even asked me what level of compensation I thought would be appropriate!
I've used the main club sites a lot over nearly thirty years and whilst some wardens have been friendlier than others, I've yet to meet anyone meriting some of the negative descriptions on here.

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[billym]

I really don't understand what it is with UK sites don't like their customers, charge silly money for pitches.
We are actually on a site in Spain at the moment don't normally use sites. All the staff are plesent and polite, constantly going around emptying the bins trimming trees and weeding they have at least ten staff all nice.
Costing us £16.50 a night quite a bit cheaper in the winter. A bit expensive by our standards.

And just to wind Swifter up, bar just outside the side but owned by them, cheap beer and a really good band playing last night, we staggered back in the early hours.

I know the site you are on and know it well.
They have staff to run the office, staff to sweep the roads, staff to connect your electric, staff to clean the toilets, staff to cover ' nights' staff to cut the trees, staff to run the bar...........which is not the case in most 2/4 person staffed CAMC sites.

And believe me the staff where you are now are as good at ' kicking off' as any when things don't go quite to plan.

Rose coloured glasses?

 

[Swifter]

This tread has reminded (me equally frustrated with the 2 main clubs service levels) that I was going to post something in praise of Britstops. I know many will say you don't need to join in order to find pubs that will allow stop overs but personally, I'm happy to reward those that have made the effort to pull something together to make the whole process simpler

Anyway, while we patiently await the delivery of our replacement motorhome, we are using our classic VW for the occasional night away for a break. We have to time this with our teenage son spending a night away as we can't yet trust him to be alone at home without leaving the oven on, lights blaring etc. Anyway, Mrs C rang a few of our favourite campsites to enquire about a night away on a Friday night recently. The weather was very pleasant so campsites were either fully booked or they wanted us to book 2 nights. The average cost was £35 per night (Surrey or Sussex prices). We decided on a Britstop instead and found a great option only 15 miles away. So we had 2 or 4 alcoholic drinks, 2 great meals, very friendly hosts, a wonderful peaceful nights sleep and a lovely walk in the bluebell woods all or £40.

I had forgotten about Britstops . We will get onboard with this as well . Amazing value for money and as a family we love pub grub

 

[bigtwin]

Rosé coloured glasses?

Corrected that for you.

Ian

 

[Golfgirl]

We've just come back from touring down the west Wales coast and Pembrokeshire and couldn't have had two more different experiences of CAMC "hospitality".
Stayed at Shawsmead CAMC site and the two staff there couldn't have been more helpful, even to the point of researching one of our questions and then coming and finding us to tell us the answer.
Staff at Pembrey CAMC redeemed themselves after an initial misunderstanding, with helpful info and not being concerned that we'd parked Bursty slightly "off peg" (hardstanding) due to wanting to get the hab. door slightly closer to the grass so doggy didn't hurt her paws (we have a mat but it's only about 3 feet wide).
Contrast those two with Freshwater East CAMC site, which we only stayed at for one night, where the "warden" came and found us as we were packing up (not as we pitched up) to tell us we couldn't use the hookups that we had (that we have always used) apparently because they aren't waterproof (they're brand new and properly IP rated so that was complete cobblers) and that we shoud have parked exactly on the peg and not the foot further over that we actually had. This was odd because we'd had to pay for a 'pitch with awning' space because their grass pitches were all closed, but we don't have an awning so we were actually a good metre and a half further away from the next pitch than we would have been had we pegged properly and used an awning. When challenged (it seemed he wasn't used to having his authoritaaa challenged) he tried to make out it was for our own benefit so we didn't get into trouble on other sites, even though we'd just been to 3 other sites in the previous 2 weeks alone and done exactly the same thing and no-one batted an eyelid.

CAMC then made the mistake of sending me a request to review the sites we'd been on, so boy oh boy did i review his!!!

Im due to stay a freshwater east in a couple of months, i hope i dont receive the same treatment.

 

[Gellyneck]

Im due to stay a freshwater east in a couple of months, i hope i dont receive the same treatment.

We've been there and no issues for us except warden politely asking when we were going to the beach with the dog and if he could move our chairs and table off the grass so he could get in to cut it when we were out.
Needless to say we moved them ourselves and he put them back when finished.
We did have a joke with him right enough saying could he not have put them back in exactly the same place!

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[Jaws]

CAMC have just lost two long time members. We have just been treatered to the most horrendous treatment by the Wardens at the Norfolk Broads site. Our friends travelling down from Newcastle experience problems on their Journey and telephoned to warn they will be late. I popped into the reception to also notify them they were running very late. When our friends called me to tell me they were three minutes way I walked up to the reception and was met by Mrs Angry barking "What do you want". I told her our friends were just arriving and she Said "Oh no they are not". I said they will be here in a few minutes. She went on to say they were not informed and called me and our friends liars. Then Mr Slightly Angry came out and said they were not going to book them in tonight. They were happy to stand there and argue with me but not to book them in. I said they were going to come in anyway as they had just travelled all the way down from Newcastle. The man eventually told us they could park in front of the reception but they would not book them in until 1pm the next day!

Bye bye CAMC.

Feel free to message me if you want to know more.

Far from the first incident at that site..
I have no idea if it is the same people every time but total horror stories abound
Really horrid people why should not be in any sort of public facing job.
I personally know of 4 complaints ( having been present while they were being typed in two cases and two others I was told of just after mails were sent ) that have been made but nothing ever seems change

 

[Jaws]

Reading this thread fully it does sound like there are at least two distinct sets of staff operating the site

Disagree, businesses need to know if their customer service is bad.

Sadly that was not my experience
When we started motor homing I joined both 'big' clubs
Unfortunately the CC as was then had a massive IT related problem and I was hit by a deluge of spam mail
I called them after no response from mails and spent some time on the fone trying to sort it.. they put me through to the IT dept ( for those that do not know, up to 2000 I was in IT ) and between us we were both stumped. The mail chucker was generating the spam and the guy could see it going out but could not work out how or why
Eventually I left him to it... but the problem continued all week
I called back and this time was told by customer relations it must be my fault but they were dealing with it

Two days later I found out HOW

( Not word for word but near enough )

My Smith, we have looked at your case and find your complaint uncalled for ( remember the it chap had confirmed the issue with me ) and your contact with the CC was far too vociferous
Under the circumstances we are cancelling your membership.
We will refund part of your membership fee

So it is not always the case they want feed back.. Only when it suits them

The whole incident left a bad taste, and is probably why, on the very few occasions I have had dealings with the organisation, I have tended to look for the bad rather than the good

 

[The Wino]

My favourite is when they tell you where the motorhome service point is ,when you are on a serviced pitch with grey waste drain and a tap for fresh water .

Useful for us because we only ever had a serviced pitch if it was all that was left and still use the drive over drain as we don't carry pipe to connect to anything else. That being said we hardly ever use sites it was only usually to stay near our son in Edinburgh and he's moved now

 

[Neil S]

Im due to stay a freshwater east in a couple of months, i hope i dont receive the same treatment.

We were at Freshwater East over Easter for two nights before moving up to another C&MC site at St.David’s
The wardens were nothing but pleasant during any contact I had with them

 

[DDJC]

Members of both clubs.

Stayed at the Norfolk Broads CAMC site last year. No problems, but then we arrived on time and left on time.

The IoW CAMC site was fine, except we were the wrong side of the peg (the instructions were reversed to every other CAMC site!) A team of four staff came over to tell us that we needed to move three feet to the left. They were polite enough, but I did feel that it was unnecessarily mobhanded - almost as if they were worried I'd kick off!

And I think that this is key. If you arrive and leave on time and use the facilities appropriately, you will have limited interaction with the staff. If you arrive after hours, or need to stay an extra hour, or have something happen that is out of the ordinary, then you may come across that member of staff who will get unnecessarily stroppy.

I think what CAMC management need to do is to remind their staff that people are rarely late intentionally, nor do they intend to have a breakdown on site, or have any of the millions of issues that affect campers. They work in the leisure industry, and while the customer may not always be right, they are always the customer.

Not sure that we will be remaining a member of both clubs next year. Now that we have a fully jabbed and paperworked family, we will go back to doing what we prefer, which is going to Yerp.

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[Folkranger]

Not all but some. They are the ones who would have loved to been old bill but they wouldn't have them.

 

[EuroTrotters]

CAMC have just lost two long time members. We have just been treatered to the most horrendous treatment by the Wardens at the Norfolk Broads site. Our friends travelling down from Newcastle experience problems on their Journey and telephoned to warn they will be late. I popped into the reception to also notify them they were running very late. When our friends called me to tell me they were three minutes way I walked up to the reception and was met by Mrs Angry barking "What do you want". I told her our friends were just arriving and she Said "Oh no they are not". I said they will be here in a few minutes. She went on to say they were not informed and called me and our friends liars. Then Mr Slightly Angry came out and said they were not going to book them in tonight. They were happy to stand there and argue with me but not to book them in. I said they were going to come in anyway as they had just travelled all the way down from Newcastle. The man eventually told us they could park in front of the reception but they would not book them in until 1pm the next day!

Bye bye CAMC.

Feel free to message me if you want to know more.

Had the same issue myself with a large site. 3 pairs of wardens, I was lost trying to get to the remaining open gate and had rang them. 3 mins past eight and we couldn’t get in

 

[Folkranger]

Got to be fair. In 45 years of membership We've come across only a couple of bad examples and many great wardens. I would say that is a much better average than we've had with private sites. One of the drivers of friction between members and wardens is the fact that the CAMC has strict rules and not every warden knows when to apply reasonable flexibility, so sticks to them come hell or high water. But then our reason for being in the club is the massive discounts that you can almost always find on ferry prices.

 

[Paulypaul]

Rudeness in Norfolk.. surely not?

 

[Spawn_e_git]

Members of both clubs.

Stayed at the Norfolk Broads CAMC site last year. No problems, but then we arrived on time and left on time.

The IoW CAMC site was fine, except we were the wrong side of the peg (the instructions were reversed to every other CAMC site!) A team of four staff came over to tell us that we needed to move three feet to the left. They were polite enough, but I did feel that it was unnecessarily mobhanded - almost as if they were worried I'd kick off!

And I think that this is key. If you arrive and leave on time and use the facilities appropriately, you will have limited interaction with the staff. If you arrive after hours, or need to stay an extra hour, or have something happen that is out of the ordinary, then you may come across that member of staff who will get unnecessarily stroppy.

I think what CAMC management need to do is to remind their staff that people are rarely late intentionally, nor do they intend to have a breakdown on site, or have any of the millions of issues that affect campers. They work in the leisure industry, and while the customer may not always be right, they are always the customer.

Not sure that we will be remaining a member of both clubs next year. Now that we have a fully jabbed and paperworked family, we will go back to doing what we prefer, which is going to Yerp.

Stayed @IOW CMHC site a couple of weeks back. We was asked to move by a warden as we had not parked correctly on the pitch but it was my mistake and the move (a van's width) actually gave us more space. My mistake was I reversed in instead of the normal driving in as out door is on the offside of the van.

Wightlink ferries then moved our Monday ferry from 11am to 9pm two days before we were due to leave. I asked the Warden if we could stay late and they offered us up to 4pm check out without charge as the sites was not going to be busy that day.

No problem with the site and all and wardens appeared to be new (by the way the mower was driven ) and very helpful.

I know from personal experience that you sometimes feel by asking to bend the rules you will be knocked back and therefore go in to gun-ho.

Where we store our van (CMHC), I never seemed to get anything out of the old wardens there but when my wife asked they could not be more helpful, this was during lockdown when I wanted to swap the battery out to keep the tracker going. My wife was there once and she said to me you start off as if its going to be awkward and cause the problem. I softened my stance in future and had no problems.

I imagine if they never drew the line then they would never get any down time for themselves, especially at the bigger sites as there could be many late arrivals etc.

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[bigtwin]

Reading this thread fully it does sound like there are at least two distinct sets of staff operating the site


Sadly that was not my experience
When we started motor homing I joined both 'big' clubs
Unfortunately the CC as was then had a massive IT related problem and I was hit by a deluge of spam mail
I called them after no response from mails and spent some time on the fone trying to sort it.. they put me through to the IT dept ( for those that do not know, up to 2000 I was in IT ) and between us we were both stumped. The mail chucker was generating the spam and the guy could see it going out but could not work out how or why
Eventually I left him to it... but the problem continued all week
I called back and this time was told by customer relations it must be my fault but they were dealing with it

Two days later I found out HOW

( Not word for word but near enough )

My Smith, we have looked at your case and find your complaint uncalled for ( remember the it chap had confirmed the issue with me ) and your contact with the CC was far too vociferous
Under the circumstances we are cancelling your membership.
We will refund part of your membership fee

So it is not always the case they want feed back.. Only when it suits them

The whole incident left a bad taste, and is probably why, on the very few occasions I have had dealings with the organisation, I have tended to look for the bad rather than the good

That is absolutely disgraceful behaviour!

Ian

 

[Molly A]

Reading this thread fully it does sound like there are at least two distinct sets of staff operating the site


Sadly that was not my experience
When we started motor homing I joined both 'big' clubs
Unfortunately the CC as was then had a massive IT related problem and I was hit by a deluge of spam mail
I called them after no response from mails and spent some time on the fone trying to sort it.. they put me through to the IT dept ( for those that do not know, up to 2000 I was in IT ) and between us we were both stumped. The mail chucker was generating the spam and the guy could see it going out but could not work out how or why
Eventually I left him to it... but the problem continued all week
I called back and this time was told by customer relations it must be my fault but they were dealing with it

Two days later I found out HOW

( Not word for word but near enough )

My Smith, we have looked at your case and find your complaint uncalled for ( remember the it chap had confirmed the issue with me ) and your contact with the CC was far too vociferous
Under the circumstances we are cancelling your membership.
We will refund part of your membership fee

So it is not always the case they want feed back.. Only when it suits them

The whole incident left a bad taste, and is probably why, on the very few occasions I have had dealings with the organisation, I have tended to look for the bad rather than the good

OK, so perhaps I should have said any sensible organisation wants feedback when things go wrong.... stunned at the tone of their mail, if they are going to get sniffy if a customer dares to get irate, they are in the wrong job. Had years of experience talking down stroppy customers and if handled well they can actually become strong advocates for a business .

 

[Fred bloggs]

Its

CAMC have just lost two long time members. We have just been treatered to the most horrendous treatment by the Wardens at the Norfolk Broads site. Our friends travelling down from Newcastle experience problems on their Journey and telephoned to warn they will be late. I popped into the reception to also notify them they were running very late. When our friends called me to tell me they were three minutes way I walked up to the reception and was met by Mrs Angry barking "What do you want". I told her our friends were just arriving and she Said "Oh no they are not". I said they will be here in a few minutes. She went on to say they were not informed and called me and our friends liars. Then Mr Slightly Angry came out and said they were not going to book them in tonight. They were happy to stand there and argue with me but not to book them in. I said they were going to come in anyway as they had just travelled all the way down from Newcastle. The man eventually told us they could park in front of the reception but they would not book them in until 1pm the next day!

Bye bye CAMC.

Feel free to message me if you want to know more.

Come to light on the Facebook forum where this was also posted that the reason that the Wardens were off with him was that he rocked up on site at 9.05 at night, over an hour after the site shut and the Wardens finished work....... there's always 2 sides to a story......

 

[Fred bloggs]

According to the Facebook forum where this was posted over the weekend this guy arrived on site at 21.05 over an hour after the Wardens clocked off for the night....... and he wonders why they would be off with him???????

 

[Swifter]

According to the Facebook forum where this was posted over the weekend this guy arrived on site at 21.05 over an hour after the Wardens clocked off for the night....... and he wonders why they would be off with him???????

Welcome to the forum .

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