Using uHaul? Better have a backup.
First of all, funk uHaul.
Called at noon on Friday for either a 10 foot MiniMover or a 14 foot truck, the rep I spoke to said they had the MiniMover I wanted and at a nearby location. To reserve the truck I had to put $5 on a credit card, put the $5 down and was told that if I didn’t hear back by 6:00 pm that night, to call another number and check up on the reservation.
Five hours later, I call to confirm before picking it up tomorrow only to be told that they don’t have ANY trucks and that they’re down to vans only. So I ask how long their trucks have been booked for – to be told that they’ve been booked since earlier this week AND to even pick up a van, I would have to get out to Jamaica LI to pick it up (at $3 a mile, plus gas). After hearing all this, I ask for my $5 back, only to be told the headquarters that initially took the reservation is the only place that I would be able to get my cash back.
Called uHaul HQ, after 15 minutes on hold I find out that they think it’s the regional place that needs to refund my money. So I got the woman’s name (Kristal) that I spoke with at the regional place and the number to get back there and ask the HQ rep if she could conference in the regional office to sort out who’s got my $5. I’m put on hold and disconnected.
Call the regional office back and get Santiago on the line, not that he cares, but I told him I’d been disconnected while waiting for uHaul HQ to conference him in about the $5. I go through a summary of why I want my cash back and he tells me that I won’t be charged & hangs up — I’m thinking, bullshit.
So they lied, stole my $5 and I’m left without a truck for a move that happened this past weekend with the help of a minivan and a few friends (thanks to Pete, Sean, Lauren, Jen & my parents).
A after re-reading this, I’ve filed a complaint against uHaul with the NY BBB.org, it’ll take them a month to get back to me, but hey, it’s my $5 those bastards stole..
Oddly enough, the cost of all your phone calls probably summed $5. 🙂
you must be really miffed – you didn’t use ‘funk’, rather opted for a more serious tone… 🙂 it’s lame (what they pulled). sounds like that seinfeld episode…â€?you’re very good at taking the reservations…â€?
My calls in the future hopefully will make the $5 they stole worth it, if not the BBB complaint might tie someone up. =P It’s lame, but a decent scam — computer records at the time said we had trucks, we can’t control in site inventory. Sorry, we don’t have a truck for you, unless that is, you drive one back from our NJ location.. by the way, thanks for your $5.
we can’t control in-site inventoryâ€?? thats classic! isn’t that *exactly* what they are supposed to be doing?! like making a dinner reservation and then showing up to have the host(ess) tell you there are no tables available… take a reservation, fill a reservation. maybe thats just my ignorant understanding of how the process works. you should have conferenced them in while you called ryder (or some other truck company). write a letter and address it to the ceo of uhaul – let him/her know how ridiculous their process is and that they lost a customer for life, plus some. simple rule of customer service – one upset customer could tell 20 people about their bad experience, who in turn could each tell 20 more people, etc…that was prior to the internet! imagine if this page were to index to a google search for ‘uhaul’…
So I googled CEO uHaul and the top link was: http://www.stevesilver.net/mt/archives/003352.html The second link was: http://www.complaints.com/october2002/complaintoftheday.october10.6.htm The rest can be seen here & http://www.dontuseuhaul.com/ Doesn’t seem like this treatment is limited to just NYC. – adding my story to this list (in addition to http://www.ripoffreport.com)