Since the incident where UHaul executives stepped in to destroy my working relationship with my local UHaul outlet, I've done some important digging on their history. 2,000+ complaints have been filed with the Better Business Bureau, and their account with the BBB was actually shut down once already for the volume of issues the company had clogging up the BBB's systems.
My treatment doesn't appear to be the exception. This is the normal way it goes for many of the disgruntled customers who don't get their issues resolved. They typically take their concerns online and hope others avoid doing business with this company.
UHaul thinks they can point to the fine print and tell you this and that are excluded, but they forget what they've called acceptable damage and billed me the deductible for before. They pretend to be all about wanting to take care of their customers, but in this situation they took a good customer and made the managers of an outlet treat that customer like the scum of the Earth.
Here is a little note from one of UHAUL'S OWN SHAREHOLDER REPORTS (2004 Annual Report):
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It is our intent to be a medium-size company with an entrepreneurial, aggressive management team, relatively immune to the potholes of corporate bureaucracy.
Our plans include the following.
• Operating in a specialty niche, where our success is dependent more on how we treat our customers than on competitive or market conditions
• Developing a self-funding balance sheet. Expand by using our own profits.
• Maintaining substantial insider ownership. This includes Shoen interests, ESOP and individual ownership by directors, employees, dealers and vendors.
• Continuing with a North American orientation. Remain relatively insulated from political changes and currency valuations.
• Maintaining constructive labor relations. Management free to make decisions independent of outside groups. Encourage a coincidence of interest between ownership, management, operative U-Haul System members and dealers.
• Maintaining a reasonable price/earnings ratio on our common stock. Emphasize the strength of the company, not the strength of the stock price.
• Employing people who are high in integrity. Successful companies are composed of people with integrity at all levels of the company
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The top and bottom items on that list are being thrown out the window in my situation. There's no integrity at all in your system when it comes to my case, and you showed you are willing to take one of your best customers, run the bill up on him and then tell him he can no longer rent from you. The executive who made this happen lied through his teeth to me and the Better Business Bureau about why they had me ambushed on the day of my rental return and are now forbidding me from renting from them ever again. The actual managers of the store did not decide to run the bill up and refuse further rentals to me. An "outside group" of two executives ran my bill up and tried to run me out of business and inflate the bill on me at the same time.
Also, it's pretty damn ridiculous that UHAUL can't figure out a good insurance plan for their vehicles to avoid all this kind of hassle being so regularly passed on to the consumer. What's worse is one of UHaul's parent companies actually OWNS an insurance company.
Sunlight is truly the best disinfectant, and I hope everyone who follows this site knows that this is not a blind crusade built by anger and spite. This is nothing like that. I am taking this stand for the multitude of people with complaints about this company that are never resolved. People who feel like they couldn't take that stand and didn't have the resources to put into such a fight can count on my efforts to make UHaul accountable here. I will hopefully inspire them to fix/stop what they are doing to over-exert executive influence on store managers across the country. Many of these people are in managerial positions because they are good leaders, are excellent with people and know how to operate all your existing systems flawlessly.
An executive of a company like UHaul should not be able to come in from some other area of the country, spend a few minutes looking around and arbitrarily decide that manager can't rent to the outlet's best customer. This is the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Customers and consumers have rights, and so do these store managers. Executive level a-holes come in, kick stuff around and try to act like they know what's best, but they really don't. These executives turned a good working relationship to what will end up being a living Hell for the company when this case goes to court.
But, hey, your attempt at ramming $755 in charges down my throat for something that should have been covered by insurance was worth the resulting turmoil, right? No damage done, right, we'll just get the next guy for what he owes us.
WRONG!
This author intends to get a judgment that will deter UHaul from ever engaging in this type of abusive behavior again. Stay Tuned.
