Complaint: Uhaul Moving

Horrible U-Haul Experience--Overcharged, Problematic Customer Service, etc.

* Moving and Storage
* UHaul

Where should I begin? My complaints with this moving company are numerous, and rightfully

so.

I had made a reservation for a 17' truck for a one-way move. During the afternoon prior to

my requested pick-up date, a service representative called to inform me that a 17' truck

was not available. As he stated, one may become available in the afternoon. When I inquired

about the specific 'afternoon' time, he responded, "It could be as late as four [p.m.]." I

was left with the option to obtain a 14' truck with an attached trailer, being that I could

not wait until the late afternoon to begin my move. This (the truck-trailer) is not what I

had wanted, and I was irritated that, having reserved a specific-sized vehicle, I was not

able to rent what I had wanted. Instead, I was stuck with a vehicle that was very difficult

to maneuver. (More on the truck-trailer issue later.)

My girlfriend and I arrived at the U-Haul pick-up location at 8 AM. We were surprised to

see only two employees working behind the counter and a line already formed in front of us.

We had to wait for service for thirty minutes. The paperwork and truck-trailer attachment

took another fifteen minutes. The employee who dealt with our rental did not provide us

with much information--he told us that the truck had to be returned to the drop-off

location the following day (which we had to inquire about--he did not offer this

information without being asked).

When we drove the rental to my apartment complex, we quickly found that the trailer

attachment was extremely hard to maneuver. Backing up the truck was a time-consuming task,

being that the trailer portion would not align itself with the truck--rather, it veered off

to the side.

Hours later, after having moved my apartment's belongings into the truck (and trailer), we

tried to close the truck's door. Result: The door was stuck--it would barely budge. On

closer inspection, we found that the coils on both sides of the door were incorrectly

wound. So, we called U-Haul's general service number and were told that maintenance

personnel would arrive in less than an hour.

Over two hours later, after several phone calls on our part to find out what the delay was

(traffic was the excuse given to us), a maintenance representative arrived at my complex,

and he took about an hour to fix the door. Because of a maintenance issue that should have

been checked by U-Haul personnel at the pick-up location PRIOR to renting the truck, our

move was significantly delayed. We did not arrive to the location I was moving to until 7

PM. Because of arriving so late, we moved some of my belongings into the new location that

evening but understandably decided to finish our move on the following day.

I called the 1-888 number the following day once we had removed everything from the truck

and trailer. The service representative I spoke with over the phone gave me the address of

a drop-off location, which we went to thereafter. Once we had parked our rental, we walked

inside the gas station convenience store (of the drop-off location) and were told by the

employees within that they were not set up to accept drop-off rentals and that we would

have to take our truck-trailer elsewhere. Thoroughly irritated that I had been given an

incorrect location, I called the 1-888 number again, reached the same female

representative, and informed her of her error. I made it clear to her that this was a major

inconvenience to us. However, she was not apologetic; instead, she was rude.

We drove to the second drop-off location given to us, which was quite a distance away from

the house that I had moved by belongings to. On the way over, my girlfriend called the

number for this second location to make sure they would accept our rental. (We did not want

to have to make a third trip to yet another drop-off location.) The male employee who

answered the phone said something to the effect of "I guess so" when my girlfriend asked if

we could drop off our rental there. Unbelievable.

Hoping that we would be "rid" of the truck-trailer once and for all and would simply have

to have the "I guess so" employee inspect the truck and have us sign whatever necessary

documents, we were told that we owed eighty-some dollars. Shocked, we asked what the fee

was for. He told us that we had turned in our rental late and had gone over the

given/included miles. We had not been told that we had a specific drop off time, our move

was delayed for three hours due to a maintenance issue that should have been caught and

corrected prior to rented the faulty vehicle, and we were given an incorrect drop-off spot

by a U-Haul service representative and had to drive additional miles--essentially

backtracking--to get to the second, farther location. Yet we owed eighty-some dollars.

Lastly, we were also overcharged at the pick-up location. After inspecting the receipt

tucked inside the booklet given to us, I found that we were charged for two dollies that we

had not requested, reserved, or used. I had to call numerous times to have the money put

back onto my charge card, which, I should add, still (a day after the phone call) has not

appeared on my account.

Overall, we had a rough move thanks to U-Haul. We will unquestionably never rent anything

from this company again.