Uhaul Story

U Haul me away . . . I will NEVER use U Haul again! U Haul

On a Saturday at 8:30am, I arrived at the local U-Haul center to pickup the truck I had reserved 3 weeks prior. My heart skipped a beat as I drove into the parking lot to see no trucks in site anywhere! With five moving men waiting patiently to load the truck upon arrival, I didn’t even want to think we would not be able to proceed with the move because there was no truck available.

I went inside the store to find another gentleman ahead of me arguing with the clerk over the fact that there was no truck available for him even though he had made a reservation a month prior and his wife called that morning to confirm the pickup. Surprisingly that gentleman just asked for the manager’s name and phone number and left. As I waited for my turn, I already knew I would have the same bad luck.

Accordingly to the clerk, the reservations made through the toll-free number or online (as I had done) were not valid, as they go through “corporate” and “corporate” fails to ensure the availability of the trucks at each center. In other words, “corporate” never fails to book a reservation because they do not want to lose a sale, but they do not bother to make sure the sale can go through since they fail to have the reserved truck available for the reservation time confirmed when the reservation was made.

With this being the ONLY day we could move, I was willing to drive to any other U-Haul center to get a truck, yet the clerk indicated all other centers did not have trucks available because they were all reserved! Well, where was my reserved truck? I asked him for his manager’s number and called her right there on the spot. I would not leave without a truck to move that day. The manager got mad and asked me to tell the clerk not to have customers call her to complain! However she did offer to call another U-Haul center to have a truck transferred to the center for us. I waited over an hour (after arguing with the clerk for a good 30 min.) for the truck to show up.

I was lucky. In the hour I waited, at least 5 other customers showed up to pick up their reserved truck and got the same story . . . there were no trucks for them! I felt like I was witnessing a Jerry Springer show in the store as each and every customer there was fuming mad. I felt their pain, and that whole hour I had no real idea whether a truck was on the way or not, which left me very stressed.

I, by the way, am pregnant. I did not expect to spend more than 30 min. at the store to pick up my truck. All the time I waited I was feeling sick and the stress over the situation I was dealing with did not help. I almost wished I had vomited right there in the store and left it for them to clean up!

The clerk did not have the ability to provide me with a discount so I ended up paying $100. The poor clerk admitted this was an ongoing problem and he didn’t have gray hair before he started working there!

I will NEVER use U-Haul again now that I know they don’t give a damn about their customers. Why on earth would you take a reservation if you can’t provide the service reserved?