U-Haul Consumer Reviews - Page 6

PHEONIX, ARIZONA -- I worked in a regional office for UHaul. What I heard and saw UHaul management do to customers went from helpful, to uncaring, to down right detestable. Obviously I've distanced myself from them. So, in helping consumers rectify bad customer service at UHaul, I will provide suggestions;

When reserving equipment, call BUDGET and PENSKE first, then call UHAUL and request they match their rate. Regional traffic offices at UHaul have the authorization to match or beat rates. Just be sure you have the exact amount because UHaul does ghost the other companies and does inquiries of their own while you are talking to them. If you have an issue, on the exit door to every corporate UHaul center, there is the regional cell number of the Marketing Company President. Basically they are the president of that region and they will often try to resolve your issues.

If talking to the MCP doesn't help, here are a couple of names and numbers at the corporate office that do have the power to change things (and if not change things, at least you can put a bug under someone's butt); UHaul Corporate switch board; 800-528-0463, VP Field Operations (#2 man at Corporate): CEO: Joe Shoen. Just ask the switchboard operator for the offices of these people and they will pass you through. Believe me, they hate getting calls into Corporate and heads will roll.

U-Haul does not make much money from a $19.95 rental. You may more rental a car. U-Haul provides a service and the dealer makes about 15% for each rental. The average commission is $10.00. They make money when you rent one-way truck causing hundreds of dollars. People forget that U-haul is providing a service when you are doing in town rental. They make more money selling you boxes or renting you blankets or dolly.

So when you go to rent a truck at your local U-Haul place, smile and appreciate you have a place to rent a truck for $19.95 for a short in town move. They are making very little money from you. There is no competition because the price is too low for others to start a similar business. You go to U-Haul because they are convenient, cheap and you need it. Don't expect them to treat you like a king for the $10.00 profit and a lot of paperwork to fill.

FRESNO, CALIFORNIA -- My son and I needed a full sized car carrier to pick up a vehicle a short distance out of Fresno. A week before it was needed, I made a reservation directly with the North Blackstone shop in Fresno for pick up at the opening of business on the next Saturday morning. The Wednesday before, I stopped by the store with my truck to have their service man check out the compatibility of the wiring hook-up with what was on my vehicle. Again, I confirmed the rental date and time.

When we arrived at the store a few minutes before opening the carrier was not in the front where it had been a few days before. Once at the counter, we were told that the carrier had been rented out to someone else the day before but that it would be back by 2:00 P.M. and we could stop by then and pick it up. The only offer U-Haul made was a 10% discount on our next rental. Needless to say, that has never been "cashed in". I don't rent from them any more. In the meantime, we were left to scramble for another carrier and found one at an independent equipment dealer across town. U-Haul offered no help, no explanation and no apologies.

CRYSTAL, MINNESOTA -- I rented a truck on Saturday 02/07/09, contract #**. When I picked up the truck and before the paperwork was signed, everyone was courteous, but after the signature all "heck" broke loose. Upon my return of the truck I was spoken to like I did not have any sense. This is the statement the person stated, " where is your receipt?... I need your receipt to ensure you place gas back in the truck." I said "I placed it in there, just go and check." He said "how do I know you did not put E85 in the truck," and I said "I put 87 grade gas in there." He said "you don't understand me (speaking slowly), E>85, it's gas made from corn."

I repeated my statement again and he started to shake his head. The rudeness went on for a few more minutes. The following is my complaint: Rudeness and unprofessional and lying. (I was told 29 dollars and 69 cents a mile; I got there, and did not take notice until my return, a price of 29 dollars and 99 cents a mile.) I was told this on Wednesday of the same week.

Taking notice from your website and the people that I work with that you are not taking these complaints seriously. So if I do not receive a reply I will be forced to escalate this to The BBB and up the chain until I get some resolve. My friends and relatives told me of their ordeal but, I did not believe them until I experienced it first hand. You have my email address and my contract number with my telephone numbers. I was treated with disrespect under poor economic conditions. What would I been treated like under good conditions?

WEBSITE -- Online I order a trailer hitch to be installed. I get an email saying that it will happen on date X. I call the U-Haul location on the day before. Yes my appointment is at 11:00. But: I go ahead and ask, "did the part come in - it was a special order part". "No, no part. Hasn't been ordered yet." So he told me the appointment time with no part there. Later the guy calls back. He called some center. That center says that the part was ordered, but it would take 6-7 weeks - so they knew all along it would arrive several weeks after the date of the appointment. Grumble!

MIAMI, FLORIDA -- I moved my entire three bedroom home from Miami Florida to New York City on August 15-17, 2913. I had some serious anxiety about the drive, especially since I was traveling with my two kids, ages 16 and 18 and I was doing all the driving. I read a bunch of reviews that were so negative and I was scared about the equipment I was going to get from Uhaul. Luckily, I had a great experience with Uhaul. The truck was a newer model and ran well. Just be prepared to drive slow, like 55 mph slow. I didn't feel comfortable driving over 55 mph because my load was so heavy. I'm not going to lie - it was scary because the truck is so big and heavy. And it was filled to capacity.

But I did it. The Uhaul customer service was great. I read that many people didn't have their trucks on time but mine was there waiting and ready when I arrived to pick it up. Keep in mind that gas is expensive so make sure that you budget for the gas. Plan ahead as to where you are planning on stopping and make sure you have enough clearance. Backing up the truck was OK. I read so many horror stories about Uhaul equipment and customer service but I had a great experience. Would I recommend Uhaul? Absolutely! If I did it, a 48 year old mother of two, with no truck driving experience, anyone could do it. Thanks Uhaul!!!

SPRINGVILLE, NEW YORK -- I will NEVER use UHAUL EVER again!! I made a confirmed reservation for a haul from Thursday till Sunday Local to pick up/drop off IN TOWN. Only to find out I had to drive over 40 miles ONE WAY to pick up this Uhaul and could not even have it for my entire rental! Only Thursday. I made several attempts to reach supervisor ** which informed me even after my credit card was needed (to make and reserve my Uhaul), my reservation was merely an effort to better assist and accommodate her every effort to place me in a Uhaul for my desired time...

In a nut shell, I would rather pay double for a moving company rather than have horrible customer service and be lied to about what I am or are not getting from this company. I will be posting this on EVERY WEBsite available along with word of mouth to any and all. YOUR COMPANY IS UNRELIABLE AND HORRIBLE!!!

WEST BABYLON, COLORADO -- My entire experience from start to "finish" - not finished yet – has been abysmal and infuriating! I would strongly advise friends, family, new acquaintances and even perfect strangers to AVOID U-boxes at all costs. I should have trusted reviews I read online stating that although U-box is half the cost of other pod services, you certainly get what you pay for.

I was forced to do most of the legwork to get my RESERVED U-box delivered to the Long Island site (I reserved it >2 months in advance with “one left on site” – you'd think that would mean they had one left). Apparently, the entire region of Long Island, NY was depleted of ALL U-boxes, with no shipment delivered. After a total of 16 hours of circling around U-Haul's phone system (with seemingly endless on-hold periods followed by getting disconnected – only to repeat this over and over, and over…) I spoke with ** (the ONLY productive U-Haul employee) and a shipment was delivered.

It's been downhill since – with numerous unreturned phone calls, cancelled and wrong reservations, 12-days until my U-Boxes were actually shipped out, changing stories with each phone conversation, no furniture pads in the U-boxes, and so on.

RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA -- I went to 4 different U-Haul outlets today trying to rent a tow dolly. Each of them had dollies, in fact one of them had 3. No one would rent one claiming they were all reserved. I asked each store to look on their screen for a location and no one was willing to find one. I called their reservation line and was on hold for 18 minutes. Finally spoke with a woman who would not even tell me where one was unless I gave them all kinds of information.

After 12 more minutes of answering question, she still would not even look to see if and where one was available. I called the local Raleigh manager to voice my complaint. This was like talking to a rock. A dead rock. This company has NO customer service at all. Arrogant, hateful bunch of SOBs. Take your business elsewhere.

MIAMI AND CHICAGO, FLORIDA -- We used U-Haul's U-Box system to move from Florida to Chicago. From start to finish it was a disaster. First, the boxes were not available the morning of our move, even though we reserved and confirmed weeks ahead of time. So our movers had to go way out of their way to get the boxes and had to rent two trailers to get them to us because U-Haul didn't have those either. Next, the billing in our credit card did not match the contract price and no one could explain why.

Then, we were told our boxes had shipped and would arrive a certain day at our new apartment. Two days before our move in, U-Haul told us no, in fact our boxes would not arrive for another week. Then, the next day, someone else called to say that, actually, the boxes had arrived in Chicago and were available for our move in but that they did not have movers for us as we had been guaranteed previously.

Finally, once we arranged our own movers and went to pick up the boxes ourselves, we waited over 1.5 hours at the U-Haul store for them to actually load them onto a trailer for us. Again, no one had any explanations. U-Haul failed us from start to finish. In the end we got our stuff the day we needed it, so in that sense the move was a success. It just wasn't smooth or organized.