I rented a cargo van from this U-Haul location in July 2017. This location seems to be staffed with only one individual, a young man named Dan Song.
During the pick-up process, Dan spoke quickly and rushed as he described all the legal fine print related to the rental, in a manner similar to infomercial adds where some voice is sped up as it goes through all the legal stuff that may actually impact you. He made it clear that the collision damage waiver I requested did not cover certain types of damage, in an attempt to up-sell me more insurance products. He did all this with the attitude and personality of a disgruntled robot. Not sure how better to describe it but it felt like I was his one millionth customer and he only wanted to "process" me as fast as possible. This already set the tone for this experience in a negative light.
I also rented a pack of furniture pads and he said to "bring it back the way I gave it to you", which on the bag itself are directions that the pads should be returned clean and folded (we'll come back to this later).
Right before I returned the vehicle, I stopped less than half a mile away to fill up the gas. I had only driven 20-25 miles that day so I didn't use up much gas (2 gallons max, I'm guessing) but I decided to let the gas pump keep pumping until it stopped on its own, suggesting that the tank was full. When I turned the vehicle back on, the gas needle didn't point to full but was instead around the 7/8th mark, which I thought was weird and assumed that it was just a defect in the vehicle but didn't think much else about it since it was at the same level I got the car at. Note that, it is possible that something happened that made the pump stop on its own before fully fueling the tank, but I've never had that happen to me before while fueling and I don't think it happened here but want to point out that it could've been a possibility.
I dropped the car off at 6pm, right when this location closes on Saturdays. I had unfortunately forgot the dolly I rented back at home so my girlfriend was bringing it to me there and was only 5 minutes away. Dan, however, in his inpatient tone and robotic style, refused to wait even a few minutes so that I could return all the equipment. I admit that this was my fault in bringing the car back without all the equipment in time so I can't blame Dan for not allowing me to return the car that day but his attitude in dealing with me was terse and unfriendly. Thankfully, he suggested that I could leave the car in the U-Haul parking lot and come back first thing in the morning with the dolly to fully return the vehicle.
The next morning I returned with the dolly to check out the vehicle completely. Dan walked around the car, inspecting for any new damage (there was none) and checked the fuel tank. He noted that the needle was pointing slightly below 7/8, so he could not give me credit for it and had to assume that the car was returned at 3/4th full. I explained to him what had happened while I refueled the car and that I only drove a few miles and added more than enough gas for the milage I drove. He grew impatient extremely quickly and immediately took my story as if I was trying to short change him on fuel. He even tried to put the blame on me suggesting that I wanted him to accept the car with less fuel in order to short change the next customer. As if, his customer service up to that point showed that he gave two sh*ts about his customers. It was obvious (a) he had no time or patience to deal with me and (b) he didn't even bother to consider that I had an honest story. I even offered to drive him to the gas station to show him that the vehicle wouldn't take in more gas and to pay for his time that it would take to do this but he was already malfunctioning as a human being (kind of like a robot not being able to compute the situation). He said he had no choice but to charge me 1.5 gallons of fuel at an obviously exorbitant price per gallon.
Additionally, before the above interaction, I had to fold the furniture pads and put them back in the bag that came with them. I folded all of them and placed them side-by-side into the bag with the exception of one pad that I couldn't fully squeeze in with the others so I put the last folded pad on top of the others, but still in the bag. When I returned the bag to Dan after the fuel fiasco, he said "I told you to bring this back the way I gave it to you". I said that I folded all the pads as directed by the instructions on the bag but couldn't fit the last one (but it was still folded) yet he continued to give me attitude and said it needed to be returned exactly how I got it. He charged me another $5 for "cleaning".
I ended up calling U-Haul corporate, which was very friendly, to file a complaint and the next day a manager credited the fuel and cleaning charges back to my credit card.
TL/DR: I would not recommend this U-Haul franchise due to poor attitude and customer service. read more
