This week I received an email from a reader informing me of a situation with South Carolina based Lil Snoozy RV. In business since 2010, the Lil Snoozy is a uniquely shaped, rear entry fiberglass trailer, created by Alan Smoak, who sold the company around 2013 to Richard Mickle. The email I received from the reader indicated her sister had put a $10,000 deposit on a Lil Snoozy, but the website disappeared and the owner could not be contacted. Sure enough, lilsnoozy.com was no longer active. I then joined the Facebook page for Lil Snoozy owners to find out what I could. Sure enough, on Monday there was a post regarding the closure of the Lil Snoozy facility in St Matthews, South Carolina. What I read there and on the forum, fiberglassrv.com, was rather disturbing. Multiple sources indicate some 45 customers had placed deposits, generally in excess of $10,000 each due to their 40% deposit requirement.
One of those indicated he’d been in contact with Mickle’s lawyer and that he was filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which doesn’t bode well for those expecting to get much, if any, of their deposits back. So those 45 customers who put down $10K-plus each, you can see how this stinks, on multiple levels. Considering there had been just a few employees (as in less than 5) building them, it makes you wonder why you’d let the waiting list grow to 45 deposits with so few people working there, resulting in wait times of some 18 months. As they say, “do the math”. This same person indicated the facility where they were produced had in fact been completely emptied of everything and the door was padlocked. Basically, there appears there’s nothing left for anyone to legally go after. I’ve got more researching to do on this, as it’s just developing. However, it seems like a bad situation for those 45, and here’s hoping they can find some positive resolution in the end. I’ll update this situation when new information becomes available.
Here’s a video I found with Alan Smoak, who developed the Lil Snoozy before selling the company some six years ago.