Uhaul Story

U Haul Me to Jail U Haul

A NATIONAL DISGRACE U Haul I made a reservation one week in advance for a move I was making a little at the last moment. I had gotten a new job and they wanted mu the...

U Hell U Haul IN September of 2000, myself and my roommate moved from Little Rock to Colorado Springs. This was a trip of over 1000 miles, and I was to dr...

I still cannot believe my recent experience with U-haul. I was moving from Orange Park, FL to St Augustine, FL which is about 45 miles away. Have a lot of stuff and I knew that I was going to need to make 2 trips in 26″ truck. The plan was to pick it up on Saturday afternoon, start loading on Saturday evening. We would complete the loading on Sunday morning, drive to St Augustine, unload, return to Orange Park, get the remainder of my stuff and go back to St Augustine and unload. After this we would return the truck in Orange Park on Sunday evening. After talking to the U-haul representative, she explained that they would not have a local truck that I could rent for 2 days, but I could rent a one way and return it in St. Augustine. This would also save me miles and make the total charges less. I still don”t understand this “Trucks are available for one way but not local use” logic. But I figure, that is something for a huge company like U-haul to understand and would be incomprehensible to a mortal mind like mine. So I agreed. After doing some “U-haul math” she took an $80 deposit from me and I would be ready to go in 10 days.

On Saturday afternoon I arrived to pick up the truck. After waiting in line and hearing other peoples” problems, I got my truck and headed on my way thinking, “Boy am I glad I”m not having problems like those people”. We loaded the truck on Saturday and Sunday and started to St. Augustine. About 2 miles from my destination the truck started to make an awful loud noise. I could continue to move about 7 mph, so I continued to my destination because I don”t want to have to unload and reload on the side of the road. When I crawled under the truck it was apparent that the drive shaft was about ready to drop. While my friends were unloading the truck, I called the emergency assistance number. After being on hold for over an hour, my cell phone battery died. I did not bring my charger, as I thought I would be moving furniture not talking on the phone for over an hour. I called my wife in Orange Park and asked her to wait on hold with U-haul while I finished unloading. I called her while she was still on hold, and told her that I was returning to Orange Park, and to tell U-haul to pick up their truck and get us a new one in Orange Park.

At this point I had to release my help as I did not know if or when I was going to get another truck. It was very important that I get all of my stuff out of the house on Sunday as we were closing first thing Tuesday morning. My wife finally got through to the U-haul service representative. The representative arranged for the broken truck to be towed and to pick up a truck at a gas station in Orange Park. When we called the number that the representative gave us, they new nothing about us. At this point we had to call the emergency number back again to get this issue resolved so that we could get a new truck. When we called the number, the “Director of Customer Service” announced that there was a 40 minute wait to talk to a representative. I told him that we just needed to talk to the same representative (we had her name) to straighten this out because the place where we are supposed to get the new truck will be closing in 30 minutes. At this point, he put me in the queue to wait 40 minutes. I hung up and called back he answered again and put me back in the queue. This happened 3 times. At this point I feel that this fellow was having a good time at my expense. Meanwhile my wife was on the other phone with a non-emergency customer service representative. She managed to get the phone number of the regional office. A regional manager was able to contact a U-haul center that was open until 7:00pm and I was back in another truck by 6:45pm. It was 7:15pm when I got back to my house and had to load up this truck. Since all of my help was gone as I spent 6 hours trying to get a truck, I was on my own. Well not exactly, I had help from by 4 year old son, 6 year old daughter and my pregnant wife. Luckily I had left only stuff that I could manage by myself for this load. After the 4.5 of us completed the loading task at 9:30pm, I called my brother-in-law and begged him to meet me at my new house at 10:30pm to help me unload. He met me there and we unloaded until 12:30pm. I made it back home about 2:00 am, woke up the next day and returned the truck at 8:00am. My dealings with U-haul are finally over … so I thought.

After all that, this is where the story gets really crazy. Over a month later about 9:30 in the morning my wife got a call from the Clay County Sheriffs Office. The officer tells my wife that they were about to issue a warrant for my arrest for the theft of a U-haul truck. It seems that the first truck that was towed, had gotten “lost”. How someone can loose a 26 foot long 15,000 pound broken truck, I”m not sure. I guess only U-haul”s logistical efficiency could explain this. Since U-haul could not find their truck, the next logical explanation was that I stole it. Makes sense to me; Of course I would steal the broken truck and return the one that actually worked. I guess the next step is, if someone has stolen your truck, and you know who it is, you just call the police and say, “This guy stole my truck”, and they go and arrest him. Luckily the officer while doing the paper work to arrest me noticed that I had changed the address on my drivers license. Apparently criminals do not tend to document when they change addresses. I guess this would be a good practice if you actually did make a habit of stealing broken U-haul trucks. At this time the officer called my wife and notified here of the situation. The officer then went to the U-haul dealer to straighten this mess out. Thanks to this thoughtful officer, I avoided the police coming to my work and arresting me and taking me to jail. Whereas this may have turned out to be a great retirement plan (after I sued U-haul), I will stick with my 401k plan. My wife then called the manager of the U-haul center and the manager explained that this is “normal practice”. This would be the main reason that I suggest not to use U-haul. I don”t like the practice of me getting arrested when they lose their truck.

If you decide to rent a U-haul truck, I suggest the following:

1. Take a cell phone with a battery charger because if you break down you will be on the phone for hours.

2. Take drinks and food so when the truck breaks down and you are waiting for hours you will have something to drink and eat.

3. If traveling in the winter, take blankets so you don”t freeze to death while you wait for assistance.

4. If traveling in the summer, take cold water, and sunscreen so you don”t burn up while waiting for assistance.

5. Before leaving the U-haul center get the number for the regional office because you will not be able to get through to the emergency number. If you want to test this call 1-800-789-3638 on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, tell them you have a broken truck and see how long it takes to get to talk to someone.