The U-Haul Customer Service Experience from Hell: Trip Report (long)

[PokerFox]

These events occurred less than an hour ago. Cliff Notes at bottom, but I think it's a good read.

Let's set the scene, shall we? It's a nice day out today. I have recently secured a well-paying job in my hometown, just having graduated college a few months back about 200 miles away from my hometown.

My lease is up soon, and I need to move all my stuff back and temporarily put it in storage until I find a place to live. I forge a path to U-Haul, with their spacious and convenient (or so I thought) storage sheds, also climate-controlled (bonus).

As I stroll into the place, I see 2 employees, one of which is pregnant and wearing a black t-shirt with no nametag. Bad sign, but I failed to recognize this. The other is a very nice lady who helped me (although, I would come to find out later, a complete waste of carbon.) She is extremely slow and apparently has not been trained at all.

I inquire about the size of rooms available, and after discussing what I need to store (2 couches, bed, furniture, etc) we decide on a 10x10x8 storage room. Fantastic. We go through the painful process of paperwork where she has to ask her pregnant coworker (and overbearing manager, who has now stepped into the room) for help, not knowing what to press or which fields to fill out, etc. They offer to give me 1 month free. I happily accepted, not knowing the pitfall I was about to dive into headfirst.

They assign me room 1604-14 (this is key; more on this later) and give me the keys to the temporary lock, so I head on over to my room and unlock 1604 (after locating it on the map).

I slide up the door with trepidation, and gaze into my new storage room.

It's slightly bigger than a camp shower, about 2 feet long by 2 feet wide. I am bewildered, look at my sheet (which confirms 1604-14 as a 10x10x8 space).

Confident that they must have assigned me the wrong room #, I troop back to the office and explain the situation. It has been less than 10 minutes since they gave me the keys (about 3:30 in the afternoon, I arrived at 2:45). The manager has already left for the day. The waste of carbon is trying to figure out why I have such a small room, and as I'm patiently waiting and staring at the storage facility map, horror dawns on me. 1604,1606,1608,1610,1612,1614..6 small rooms directly adjacent to each other? (all separated by walls)

No, surely they couldn't be this stupid. I have to be wrong. I quietly inquire of the pregnant employee (who is at least aware of her surroundings) if they rented me 6 combined rooms to reach my combined "10x10x8" storage space.

Unabashedly, she confirms my dreaded hypothesis, after clicking a few buttons on the computer. I sit in stunned silence and wait for them to realize what they've done.

They don't.

I explain to them, that, did they expect me to cut my couch and bed into 6 different pieces to store it? Did they not remember when I told them I had large pieces of furniture and a bed to store?

They stare at me with friendly complacent looks on their faces, starting to become a bit apologetic. I am reminded of lambs heading to the slaughter.

Preggo clicks a few more buttons and says they have no single rooms that make up a large space, only a lot of 2x2 and 5x5 rooms they can combine for however much storage I want (first month free!)

I sigh, hang my head, and politely ask for a full refund ( which takes another 30 minutes). They apologize (finally) for wasting my time. I am silent. The thought runs through my mind that I may have been leveled, but no, I realize these people are really that stupid.

Moral: Don't use U-Haul.

Cliff Notes: I needed a 10x10 storage room for all of my apartment furniture from college. U-Haul unknowingly rents me 5 2x2 rooms (approximately) and doesn't see the inherent problems. This whole process took 1-2 hours and was a complete waste of everyone's life involved. I contemplate bungee-jumping without a cord.

[Slow Play Ray]

awesome.

[Pyromaniac]

you forgot to mention that 10x10 = 100 square feet, whereas 2x2 = 4 square feet. so they were about 19 rooms short on their estimate [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[skunkworks]

Where's Rick Moranis with his shrink ray when you need him.

[PokerFox]

[ QUOTE ]
you forgot to mention that 10x10 = 100 square feet, whereas 2x2 = 4 square feet. so they were about 19 rooms short on their estimate [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm still so stunned I'm not even sure how they came up with any of their calculations. I might go back just to give the manager hell, but I doubt it. Lost cause.

[bernie]

You also have to watch renting trucks from U-Haul.

I rented one and and the speedometer was in KMh.(The mph were underneath where the Kmh usually are. Ok, I could deal with that. When I took it back after I was done, they then tried to charge me for kilometers instead of miles. The mgr was a young fast talking kid. I actually had to go through their main office. The kid was pretty pissed about it because he said I should've went through him. I reminded him I brought it to his attention when I brought it back and he'd said it would convert it back to miles in the computer.(yeah right). Funny how is tone really changed when his district mgr called him. It went almost as far as the attoryney general for fraud charges as there were alot of miles on this truck. Who knows how many didn't catch it. Those miles add up.

U-Haul said they were 'selling' the truck or some sh*t. The AG asked if I wanted to pursue the charges. It was awhile ago so I don't remember how all that exactly ended up, other than they adjusted my bill.

U-Haul kinda blows.

b

[IggyWH]

I think anyone that has anything to do with U-Haul is braindead. I had to rent a truck today, as I'm moving next week and wanted to move my crap out of my place and into my parents house for temp while I sort through what I'll take and so I can clean my old place.

I went online, did a search for U-Haul's in my area and came up with like 50 results. I'm right in between 2 places that rent U-Haul's, .1 miles away from each. I do a reservation online for the truck and I get a call. I go through all my details, all is well and complete for my truck today and then finally, I ask them which U-Haul are they calling me fron, since both were equal distances away.

Of course, they were 10 freakin miles away from my house. I did a search and came up with exactly 18 places that rent U-Haul's that are closer to me than who corperate U-Haul selected to call me.

I gave the guy who called me some crap to which he said call them yourself and hung up on me. Fine by me... I didn't have to drive 10 miles for my damn truck.

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
I think anyone that has anything to do with U-Haul is braindead. I had to rent a truck today, as I'm moving next week and wanted to move my crap out of my place and into my parents house for temp while I sort through what I'll take and so I can clean my old place.

I went online, did a search for U-Haul's in my area and came up with like 50 results. I'm right in between 2 places that rent U-Haul's, .1 miles away from each. I do a reservation online for the truck and I get a call. I go through all my details, all is well and complete for my truck today and then finally, I ask them which U-Haul are they calling me fron, since both were equal distances away.

Of course, they were 10 freakin miles away from my house. I did a search and came up with exactly 18 places that rent U-Haul's that are closer to me than who corperate U-Haul selected to call me.

I gave the guy who called me some crap to which he said call them yourself and hung up on me. Fine by me... I didn't have to drive 10 miles for my damn truck.

[/ QUOTE ]

Phone book tends to work better.

b

[Sooga]

I called U-Haul's 1800 number when I had to rent a truck for a move a couple summers ago. I put my name down and a deposit, foolishly thinking that this would reserve me a truck.

What it ACTUALLY did was just reserve the POSSIBILITY of a truck. They said they would call me at least 24 hours before my move time to confirm truck availability. Of course, when that time actually rolled around, they hadn't called yet. I called their CSR's and they all gave the same reply, "You'll have to wait til the morning, to see what trucks they have available." "So in other words if there's no truck available, I won't be able to move tomorrow?" "Well, there will probably be a truck, blhablhablhabh, ok bye".

So by 8am the morning of the move (my friends were coming at 11am to help me), I'm getting panicky. Finally I decide to just say f-em, cancel my reservation, and call this mom & pop Budget Rent-A-Truck place, and they said I could just come right down and pick up a truck.

I should have just done that from the start. I'm never using U-Haul ever again.

[Dids]

I've had zero problems and pretty good service renting trucks from uhaul.

A+++++ would rent again, etc.