Yellowstone Under Canvas RIPOFF Report
BEWARE OF SCAM at Yellowstone Under Canvas. Do not book a reservation at Yellowstone Under Canvas until you read this review and all its details. Mtundercanvas and Yellowstone Under Canvas knew they were prohibited from using the heat stoves in their deluxe tents from an NPS order, yet three weeks after that order goes into effect – with major news coverage of the heat wave, droughts and forest fires – continues to tell potential customers on its website that they are able to provide heat in their tents and wood burning stoves.
When you check-in, they plead ignorant, offer you no option to cancel your reservation. They don’t even offer you the courtesy of a call an hour before you arrive. Why? Why would they wait until you arrive from a long day on the road, tired with a car load of family wanting to get into their tent for a fun night of “glamping”? To force you to pay for something they can’t provide, bend you over and take you, or to be concerned and compassionate merchants who want your repeat business?
Want a complete review of mtundercanvas, our stay in a deluxe tent and our stay at Yellowstone Under Canvas? The soft, good and bad I will leave to my wife Anna. I unfortunately have to deal with the ugly side of this outfit. The one that gets a review of “Do not stay here” until they fix their business practices. If you have a stay coming up try your best to get out of it now. Do let this organization get away with this type of poor service in any economy, let alone our current economy. They need to earn our dollars not rip you off.
06/22/2012 – National Park Service declares Fire State I, making it impossible to smoke cigarettes, run engines or have a campfire or fire inside a tent unless it is inside a Forest Service provided metal ring.
07/01/2012 – There is a news update at http://www.mtundercanvas.com to remind you of the low temperatures at night. And that their deluxe tents have heat.
As with all outdoor businesses, we cannot control the weather and unfortunately do not issue refunds for guests wishing to cancel because of bad weather unless we have a direct safety concern.
Please be aware that Yellowstone temperatures often dip into the 30′s at night even in the summer. We provide bedding which is rated below 0, but still advise our guests to bring warm clothes to sleep in. Only our deluxe tents have heating.
07/03/2012 – We arrive at Yellowstone Under Canvas, and are presented with a photocopied or printed sheet of paper taped to the counter. And informed that “Oh my, we are so sorry, but we are unable to use the wood burning stoves in our deluxe tents due to an order. You know, with all the forest fires in the news.”
We are also handed a sheet and told all adult guests must sign this waiver saying we understand that this is a camp ground and trip and ankle hazards are at our own risk. This must be signed before you are let into the campground. We sign it, and she does not have a copy of it for us to keep.
We watched the sunset, and stayed until the temperature got so cold that we could not stay in our tent. Our car was covered in frost, our girls were cold, dressed wearing their North Face jackets. And we paid for a tent with heat but could not turn it on.
From: Sarah Dusek [mailto:shdusek@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2012 5:19 PM
To: jim@skamarakas.com
Subject: Re: Stay 07/03/2012
Dear Jim,
Thank you for your email and your request to refund your stay with us due to the fact you were not permitted to use your wood stove. I completely understand this was very inconvenient for you and not what you expected for your stay. As I am sure you can understand though your safety and that of our other guests is our top priority and if a fire ban has been put in place in the area by either the National Park service or the National Forest Service we are obliged by law to comply. We were made aware of the fire ban and its application for our wood stoves on the 3rd July and therefore this was the first day it was in place at our camp. It would not have been possible therefore to have notified you earlier and even if we had we would still not be able to issue full refunds for cancelled bookings due to the fact your tent was still perfectly useable. As I am sure you are aware our guests stay in tents without a wood stove most of time even when temperatures drop below 32 degrees and most of our guests are young families. I appreciate you did not want your 1st grader to sleep in a tent without heat which was why you had booked a deluxe tent and so I completely understand why you choose to search for somewhere else to stay. In light of this I am prepared to offer you a refund of $100 which represents the difference between an deluxe tent and a standard safaris.
I trust you will find this acceptable.
Best wishes
Sarah Dusek
Sage Safaris LLC
21004 St Joe Road
Havre, MT 59501
USA
www.sagesafaris.com
www.mtundercanvas.com
www.tentandtipirental.com
+1(406) 219-0441
1(406)600-6670; 1(406)600-3287; 1(406)600-9425
Phone: 1(406)219-0441
Mailing Address: Sage Safaris LLC,
890 Buttermilk Creek Rd
West Yellowstone, MT 59758
Filed Under: soapbox
Tags: camping, canvas, review, scam, yellowstone
I don’t know if I could possibly get 600 more Tweeple in...
Jim said,
The owner called me and she proceeded to lecture me on my not understanding that things happen. I advised her that I was doing a charge back against her for the prepaid amount.
She asked me what a charge back was, and how this would impact her.
The call ending with her offering me a refund only if I took down this blog and removed the review on trip advisor. I told her to send the refund or not, I will get it back from the charge back.
Jim said,
And someone has responded to the trip advisor review of Yellowstone Under Canvas to say that we were abusive. Anyone that knows Anna knows she is as far from abusive as there can be. And I posted my email to them about the issue.
For a merchant to come behind and attempt to slam us as consumers by trying to besmirch us is just low class. It is what to expect for your hard earned money at maundercanvas.com until this outfit makes changes
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