Wow. My recent experience with Uhaul was negative from start to finish--surprising, since Uhaul is…read more(was?) kind of the standard-bearer of DIY moving. It's like "magic marker" or "Bandaid." When you mean "rent a self-haul truck," you say, "rent a u-haul."
HOWEVER, I expect to see this company on Undercover Boss soon if they haven't already been on--someone needs to descend from corporate heights and get a whiff of what's going on in U-haul locations. (I have thoughts on the location in Chandler where I picked up the truck for a single-day's one-way move, but I'll post those there. The post will be called "Is there maybe a grownup here I could talk to?")
As I said, I rented a 10' truck to move a kitchen table set from one side of town to another, and I chose this location as my dropoff. Dropoff would have to take place on a Sunday evening, when the business was closed. We deposited the secured truck in their lot, placed the keys and paperwork in the drop box, and went on our merry way. The next morning, I called to verify--and I'm glad I did. The woman who answered said she had "no record of our vehicle" and "no order is coming up with that reservation number" and "there's nothing under your name." (Meanwhile, I used the very same order number and name to pull up the reservation online.) She said she needed to "do research," which I assumed meant she had to get out of her office chair and empty the dropbox. She called back TWICE to hear the name and order number again and again. Still nothing. Then four hours of silence, while I wondered if I was now on the hook for $40,000 or a U-haul.
Finally, I called back again ... when I spoke to her, she talked elusively about a "burglary" that happened after dropoff. I would be charged for mileage and gas overages (despite the fact that we returned the truck gassed up and under the 70 mile limit) of $70. Not a huge dollar amount, sure, but I have some problems with this:
1. I paid for SafeMove insurance, which, according to U-haul's website, covers theft of the vehicle as long as the renter was not negligent. Therefore, I should be responsible neither for the vehicle if stolen nor for attendant charges like gas and miles. That is, if there is a police report or credible evidence of theft in the first place. If there isn't, how do I know some dirtbag who works for them didn't take the truck? They can either credibly demonstrate that theft occurred or not ... and I'm not responsible for either scenario after my possession of the vehicle ceased.
2. There is no excuse for this rep's failure to communicate clearly and frequently to update me or to answer basic questions like "did you check the drop box? were the keys there?" (The all-purpose answer: "I'm doing research." With the amount of "research" this woman did, she should be just about ready to write up her U-haul dissertation.) She also claims that her surveillance video has "no record" of my returning the truck when/where I said I did (and yet ... she has the truck ... so does she maybe not have a real surveillance camera?).
3. Her other answer to everything, besides "I'm doing research," was "I'm just doing what my boss told me to do." Ah yes, the classic shitty-customer-service refrain. If you work for U-haul in a customer service capacity, you should be able to answer why the insurance I paid for isn't insuring me.