I dealt with this large U-Haul branch at the tail end of two recent rentals I completed: one for a…read more5 x 8 storage trailer I pulled all the way from Florida, and also as the arrival spot for a u-Box full of our possessions that U-Haul transported the same distance for us.
It is only fair to state that in my direct interactions with the employees at Odlin Road (and indeed at all locations), they were polite and helpful. But it seems like the policies of the national U-Haul company get in the way of good service when bad things happen. I was delayed by a couple of hours returning my storage trailer due to the trailer ball loosening frighteningly on the way there, so I arrived after hours. Now they have a night drop procedure, but there were no signs there describing it beyond telling you to use your smart phone. But parts of Maine, including Bangor it turns out, are rough spots for our previous phone carrier, and I couldn't access the night return information. So we left the night return service lane and moved the trailer to the section where they kept them all. When I got back to our new home, I emailed the facility and let them know I had dropped it off, including the license plate number and the trailer number on the side of it. I called the next day to make sure they had received the email. The person didn't know but thanked me for calling, and later I was charged for an extra day of rent. (Also later we changed our phone carrier.)
That was the trailer. With the U-Box, it didn't arrive on the expected day and I didn't receive a call to let me know it would be late. I phoned this same Odlin Road location and a gentleman was earnest and polite but said the U-Box transportation department handled that and he couldn't help me. O-Kay. I worked for a national insurance company for 15 years and it had several large, far-flung departments, but I wouldn't have lasted three months if I told customers that a screw-up was someone else's fault in the company so I couldn't help them. I would arrange assistance for them and then get back to them. Again, a national company weakness, I assume. Days later I received a call from the U-Box transportation department saying that my new "Guaranteed delivery date" had to be changed again (we had never been told there was a previous new guaranteed delivery date) and the U-Box would now arrive eight days past the original date. And so it did, damaged, we noticed, but thankfully the contents we had packed were fine. A day or two later I called the U-box people in Brunswick and again spoke to a nice and helpful person who arranged my refund for the guarantee, but I doubt I would have received it if I hadn't called to remind someone. Indeed, despite how helpful she seemed, I will monitor the credit account to make sure.
I should stress that when the U-Box arrived at the Odlin Road location, they were very fast delivering it to us, so again, it seems the policies and procedures of the company as a whole, not their people, are what get in the way of a satisfactory rental experience if something unforeseen occurs, as it did with us with both rentals.
On a final note, if you phone the Odlin Road location and it rings through to their call center, you might want to hang up and try again in a while. I got the call center once and she gave me a different number to call, perhaps to enter a different rabbit hole of unhelpful interaction somewhere else in the company.
