U-Haul . . . Bad Customer Service Policy
My roomate and I moved over Memorial Weekend, one of the busiest times to move. Subsequently, renting a moving truck becomes challenging. Two weeks ago, I made a reservations for a U-Haul truck in the Lakewood area. Their policy is that you have a $5 non-refundable service fee for a reservation. At first glance, this does not seem to be a problem. However, when the U-Haul person called me the next day to tell me that the earliest I can get a truck that day is 5:00 PM.
5:00 PM??
That's the end of the day man! What would even be the point then. I cancelled the reservation (as if that was a realistic offering anyway). However, you still pay the $5.
Now, it's not that $5 is breaking the bank, but it's the principle of the matter - if you can't offer adequate service, then there should not be a $5 service fee. You did not provide me with a service, other than to tell me I'm moving at night. That's ridiculous.
Comments
I feel your pain...Uhaul's policies have consistenly frustrated me. I think I'm just going to buy a step van for the next time I move...
Posted by: gryhrt | June 1, 2005 03:54 PM
My husband and I have rented 3 storage units for the past 6 months. We pay our monthly rental on the 21st of each month. On the 26th of November we moved out completely. We had already paid our rent for December and have been told u-haul DOES NOT REFUND AT ALL. Therefore, we paid $130.OO FOR 5 DAYS RENTAL AND RENTED A TRUCK TO DO IT. Our family is paycheck to paycheck and could use this money that was not used for the remaining 26 days in the month. We have just wasted around $80.00 we could desperately use at this time. We will NEVER USE U-HAUL AGAIN AND WILL TELL EVERYONE OF OUR EXPERIENCE AND STRONGLY ADVISE THEM NOT TO USE U-HAUL DUE TO THEIR TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!
Posted by: Elba | December 5, 2005 03:15 PM
Yeah, UHaul did the same thing to me! I made a reservation and then they called me back and told me that the nearest pickup location was about half hour away. I had previously rented UHaul from a location that was less than 5 minutes away. I cancelled my reservation and asked if I would be charged anything. The UHaul guy assured me that I would not be charged but I check my charge bill this month and saw that a service fee of $5 was there. I DON'T recommend UHaul at all.
Posted by: Susan | June 20, 2006 01:53 PM
I just got off the phone with U-Haul. They indicated on their website we could get a truck at one place, but then indicated on the phone that we'd have to pick up somewhere else. I'm being charged the $5 service fee, and they're trying to charge me a $50 late cancellation fee! I cancelled as soon as I heard how far I had to go to get the truck. I'll be getting in touch with my elected officials/consumer watchdog group if this isn't settled quickly.
Posted by: Amanda | August 2, 2006 12:34 PM
My husband and I most recently took our 86 Ford to have a seven pin connector installed so we could tow our new trailer. We did this regretably at the U-HAUL at 2121 SE 82ND AVE location in portland oregon 97206 (503)771-6134. On 8/26/06, after receiving a call from the U-Haul telling us our truck was ready to pick up, we went and did so. We then proceeded to pick up our new trailer we bought. On arrival to our home we went to shut the truck off so we could open the gate and back the trailer on our landing pad. Well much to our dis-may the truck would not shut off and we also noticed our power windows would not work and our a/c quit running as well.
Now as soon as unhooked the seven pin connector that U-Haul installed, everything went back to normal.
Now a little upset, but sure that U-Haul would correct whatever errors they made, we called them back to discuss returning our truck, so they could fix it. Well, from the get go they were not accomadating; they told us we could not bring the truck back until Monday, when we had to return to work.( how convient for us. ) We decided we would take the truck back up to U-Haul on Sunday, and leave it so they could fix it in the morning. Well again we called up Monday 8/28/06 to see why they had not called us back and told us it was fixed. Instead they told us that they had done nothing wrong, despite the fact the truck was fine before they had touched it. And to really top things off, and to hide there incompetentcy, they said- just sue us. Now that's great customer service I tell you.
Now this is what I will do. I'm going to take the truck where I get treated like the customer and where I can trust the workmanship, and when they tell me that U-HAUL screwed it up, then I will sue. But in the mean time I will never use -u-HAUL again, and every opportunity I have; I will tell others and strongly reccomend they go esle where.
By the way the Managers name was (Ernesto )and he also was the incompetent tech that worked on our vehicle. My husabnd called our mechanic and he said that they most definetly screwed somthing up. He also said take it back to them and have them remove it and then bring it to me. Well we did this and of course they refused to do this as well, not a suprise.
Sincerely,
Never a U-Haul customer ever again.
Posted by: Darcie Albrich | August 29, 2006 03:14 PM
NOWHERE on the Uhaul website do they state that the "service charge" is NONREFUNDABLE. Doesn't state it on the confirmation either. My opinion is that this is borderline illegal.
Posted by: Laura | June 22, 2007 09:39 AM