Uhaul Story

U-Haul are rubbish, Budget rules (for Truck Rental)

A total nightmare U Haul They changed the size of the truck and location pickup FIVE times within three days, expecting me to pay mileage far from my home. When ques...

Zeig Haul U Haul Well, I can't fight U-Haul on any technical grounds because, in my usual frantic manner, I didn't pay attention to their rules; I had an eng...

This week has been illuminating with regard to the state of van/truck rental companies in the US. As I prepare to move into a new home, I have a need to move some furniture. I have no intention of paying someone good money to do a job I am more than capable of doing myself (and probably able to do it with less damage to me personal property too). Move time is going to be next Saturday morning.

So earlier this week, I set off on a search for a suitable van. Ideally a 16/17 foot van is required. U-Haul are conspicious here in Boston thanks to the self-marketing provided by their vans/trucks - so I made them my first port of call. I went online, gave my address information and booked at 17 foot van, which should be enough to move everything in one trip. When I was booking, they interrupted the process by offering a whole set of packing accessories - the annoying thing is that they automatically include those in your cart. So I deselected these and completed the booking process. Grand total came to $35.

On the U-Haul confirmation page, they mentioned that a representative from “your local” location will call me to confirm my booking. A few hours later, I had a voicemail on my phone which told me that I had a confirmed booking - for 4pm on Saturday evening!! That’s not exactly useful - who the hell moves on a Saturday evening?!? I needed to get this changed to Saturday morning - which coincidentally was what I asked for on the website.

Anyway, I called the local agent. The phone rang for about 2 minutes before eventually someone picked up. The guy who picked up was the same guy who left the voicemail. I mentioned I had a question on a reservation, he said “please hold”. 10 minutes of “on hold” later, I hung up in frustration.
I called about an hour later, got through to the same guy again, same hold situation. This time I decided to hang on, as I needed to get this sorted. When he eventually did pick up the phone, I told him of my plight. He then told me that he didnt have any vans of that size for Saturday morning, so instead they had booked me for Saturday evening. The other options were to get the small van or the gargantuam 24 foot truck (neither really suitable).

So, I wanted to look at other options. Penske have a distinct lack of locations around Massacheussets, so they were out of the running. But Budget - they have a location just down the street, and have a really friendly website and booking process. I booked with them, called them later to confirm and got exactly the vehicle I wanted for the time I wanted it at. Success!!

So a quick summary of what I learned about U-Haul from this experience:

* U-haul scheduling and customer service is far more decentralized than I would have expected for a large and prominent company. It seemed to be just a collection of disparate disconnected local agents instead of a true ‘brand’ with common standards and processes
* U-haul scheduling was rather unhelpful - instead of telling me that they did not have availability of the truck I wanted for the time I wanted, they just assumed that a different time was suitable for me.
* U-haul customer service sucks. When they eventually picked up the phone, I was waiting for 10 minutes on average.

I will be going to Budget for my business from now on (though thats not a huge win for them - I don’t move houses too often

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Tags: packing, rental com, truck rent