Alabama couple alleges Elkhart County RV dealer scammed them out of thousands of dollars

MIDDLEBURY, Ind. -- A couple in Alabama says they reached out to ATIA RV in Middlebury back in February this year and were promised a finished RV in two months.

Friday morning, ABC57 spoke with a woman who believes she and her husband have been scammed. ABC57 also contacted Iva "Nick" Nicholas who runs ATIA RV and received no response. The couples' main concerns are

They never got what they paid for and won't get their money back.

Iva "Nick" Nicholas is apparently at the 2026 Elkhart RV Open House this week still doing business with others.

"We're just trusting, I suppose that's biting us now."

Toni and Matt Curtis live in Birmingham, Alabama and were looking for a new RV camper. Naturally, they looked to the RV capital of the world... Elkhart County.

That is where they found ARIA RV in Middlebury.

"We had several phone conversations, he speaks well. He knows what he's talking about. He had been in the business for 20 something years. I did find there was an RV article about his innovativeness. He had a website that looked reputable, he looked legit," said Toni.

The couple were looking to upgrade to a bigger customized unit.

"I did get some pictures. There were some questions on the pictures. The validity of was it our camper? We had asked for fiberglass floors."

In this text thread between Toni, Matt and Nick, Matt questions the material the floor is made of.

"He made some excuse about one of the pictures. 'Oh, that must have been another camper he was working on.'"

On February 16, Curtis says she gave Nick a non-refundable deposit of $13,495.55 for the camper that would eventually total $26,495.55. The sales agreement mentions a deposit of $13,427.78.

Curtis believes the extra money was a percentage taken from her Discover card. They decided to move forward and signed a sales agreement which Toni says had issues.

"Initially, in the beginning had a June date, and I was like, "why would it have a June date? And we had just signed it in February?' He says 'oh, I'll get it corrected.' So, he did correct that, and when I look back at it, I didn't notice it had the wrong model information, things like that were incorrect as well. It's not a very consumer friendly agreement that we signed, and that's our fault completely. It basically takes all liability off of him," explained Toni.

Curtis tells ABC57 her and her husband were in contact with Nick since February and were promised a finished build in April.

Here you can see communication between Toni, Matt and Nick from February to June where his last response was June 23.

This email shows Nick's final communication on June 25 with pictures of what Toni says should be her camper. 

"We have numerously reached out for texts, emails, phone calls, left lots of messages. Nothing. He has not responded at all. At that point, we're like, okay, this isn't good."

Curtis says she and her husband reached out to Attorney General Todd Rokita, consumer protection experts and the Better Business Bureau. So did ABC57.

"There’s an earlier BBB review from a consumer who also reported a lengthy delay and difficulty communicating with the company and problems obtaining a refund, but that’s something that we’re certainly paying attention to and so we’re not seeing a pattern of complaints yet.”

Jan Diaz with the BBB says, there have been some recent company changes they're still trying to understand.

"There are two names identifying the same individual with both ATIA and Vantera, but what we haven't established is what that change means legally or whether obligations of ATIA RV transferred to Vantera and that’s something that would require additional review.

Curtis says after realizing something was wrong, they came across reviews and complaints for ATIA RV on the BBB website.

The ATIA RV website is currently shut down but when it was up, it showed the address of 106 Wayne Street in Middlebury.

ABC57 visited the address Friday afternoon only to find out it is the location of The Tipsy Terrier Brewery — currently under construction.



Their last effort to see if Nick was intentionally avoiding them was to have their friend John Ryerson contact Nick.

“I contacted him via email and phone call to try to set up a date to go look at his products. I kind of got the run around and never got an exact location or a time or anything like that we could meet up. I just kept getting circles of he was moving locations and didn’t have a new facility and that I wasn’t going to be able to come out at this very instant. Another excuse was that he was getting ready for an RV show and he just didn’t have time available while he was getting ready for the show," shared Ryerson.

Unlike Toni and Curtis, John hasn't had much trouble getting in touch with Iva "Nick" Nicholas.

"The last time was probably an email which I will say was probably going on a week ago.”

ABC57 emailed, called, texted, and sent a Facebook message to ATIA and have not heard back.

As for Toni, she wants a full refund and to warn other people to be careful who they do business with.