But what happens when the big SNAFU is all on them? For such a big, well known, international company, you would think that they would have all of their legal ducks in a row. After all, they rent out trucks as big as 18-Wheelers to just about anyone with a driver's license and an address, so you would think that when it comes to absorbing the assets of another business they are buying out, they would know exactly what to do and how to do it. WRONG. Apparently U-Haul International treats the procurement of another failing business with about as much knowledge and experience as a bunch of kids playing "mergers and acquisitions". Kids play make believe lawyer, right?
This is where our story comes in! You see, we didn't start out as U-Haul customers. Our business was with a company called Door to Door storage. A company that I had no qualms with. Unfortunately, they were recently bought out by U-haul...and the timing couldn't have been worse. After receiving a letter stating that Door to Door had gone bankrupt and been purchased by U-Haul, I had some slight concern with how this might affect a move my husband and I had coming up. I quickly calmed my own fears, reminding myself that U-Haul is a huge company, I'm sure they know what they are doing! Allow me to repeat my previous statement: WRONG!
I contacted U-Haul May 15th 2017 for the first time to initiate the process of moving our portable storage units from Kent, WA to our new home in Houston, TX. I assumed that it would be relatively simple. After all, both U-Haul's UBox department AND Door to Door offer the same service - they ship you a storage unit, you load it, they move it for you. The only thing that changed was the ownership. Can I say it again? WRONG!
I spent the next week and a half calling UBox customer service every single day trying to get an answer. At first I understood their response. They had trouble with the customer data transfer during the acquisition, and they wouldn't be able to schedule the shipment of our items for a week. This frustrated me, but I was willing to accept it. I was told to email Help@UBox.com for more assistance, as this was a "special email" set up just for Door to Door customers. I have since emailed them three times, with no reply.
At this point, mind you, my husband was still with me here in Washington. Had someone told us that there was a huge mess ahead, we would have cut a deal to rent a large moving truck, loaded it, and driven our belongings down there ourselves. Unfortunately, customer service gave us no such (or any) information. I finally spoke with someone who forwarded my concern to his direct manager, and CC'd me on the email. I didn't receive a reply there either.
Fast forward another week...during which we complained to the BBB, got in touch with a manger in Houston who advised us to call Door to Door per corporate, who in turn told us they couldn't help us because they didn't own the company or facility anymore. I finally got the idea to check back on that email I was CC'd on to contact the manager. He finally got back to me and basically admitted that U-Haul didn't know their arse from a hole in the ground when it came to this acquisition. Okay, not his verbage, but you get the idea. He told me that a data transfer that they thought would take a day wound up taking weeks...causing huge delays in being able to access customer information! Well that's all well and good...but in the meantime my husband and our roomates are sleeping on the floor in an empty house. This was on Friday May 26, 2017. He advised me that they located my units and they would likely be shipped out on Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week.
I was already not happy about this. After all...that's two weeks after I tried to get this whole ball rolling, and two weeks I wasted having my request basically fall further and further down the rabbit hole every time I called. But, alas, at least this was progress, right? Uh oh...here it comes again...WRONG!
Time comes and goes, all the while my husband is in Houston working his new job coming home to an empty house...and by Friday (which was this last Friday, June 2) I realize I haven't heard much from my friendly U-Haul Helper. So I reached out to him (of course, why would he contact me, right? As the customer I suppose it's my job to make sure they stay on top of their customer service game) and discover that our stuff still hasn't shipped! Now I'm quite angry...still hasn't even started making it's way to Texas huh? He did inform me that he "came across an email" stating that it would be shipping out on June 3...which was yesterday. Now...I'm pretty mad at this point. June 3rd is way beyond the point of "oops, sorry for the delay!". This was a huge problem and it was all U-Haul's fault.
Skip to this morning...I have at least taken some comfort in knowing that...even though it took forever, our things are being shipped...there is a light at the end of this tunnel of stress, aggravation and discomfort. But wait...I was told that I would receive a confirmation email when the items shipped. By that rationale, I should have received an email on Saturday saying "hey we finally pulled our heads out of the sand long enough to actually do our jobs! Your husband can stop sleeping on the floor soon!" right? All together now...WRONG! I contacted customer service one more time, and guess what? Now the shipment isn't scheduled to go out until June 5, tomorrow. On top of that, the 7-8 days in transit I was quoted (along with a verbal note that it would probably be even less time) somehow turned into 9 days on the road and another 2 to get from the local Ubox location to our house! So there you have it...supposedly all of our belongings, a 4 bedroom house's worth of furniture, cooking supplies, and appliances MIGHT POSSIBLY HOPEFULLY be delivered to Houston over a month after I originally contacted them to arrange the move. Bravo U-Haul. Bra-Vo. Seriously, all the slow claps in the world...just for you.
In short, I advise any and everyone to stay far away from these people. Its not only that they rip you off, their customer service is bad. Not just bad, it's scary how they actually don't know how to help any one of their customer's who has a real problem. And it's just downright wrong that they leave people like us in this type of situation...a married couple, living apart while one starts a new career and the other stays behind to have their first child (did I mention I'm also 8 months pregnant? Thanks for the extra stress!). So thanks for testing our patience, physical and emotional limits, and marriage for us U-Haul, but next time if you could just get our STUFF where it's supposed to GO like you're supposed to DO, it'd be great.
