The Nightmare That is U-Haul

We have a place to live for the next year! I'll update more on that after we move in tomorrow. First, I'd like to tell you a little story about U-Haul and the mess of a company they have. The people at U-Haul know less than Jon Snow and will rip you off.

Once we put a deposit on the apartment Friday, Brandt looked at the shipping prices for our U-Boxes. They had grown exponentially! They wanted us to pay more than $1,000 higher than their website said in May. Brandt called U-Haul in Wichita to inquire about shipping our three pods and what was going on with the price hike. He was transferred all over: to the district office in Kansas City, to this place, to that guy, and so on. Turns out, the manager in Wichita likes to leave at 3 or 4 p.m., which is 1 or 2 p.m. our time. U-Haul said the manager would send him an e-mail on Monday. We were out of luck until then.

Monday came and went with no response from the manager. On Tuesday, Brandt tried calling again and when he made it through all the transfers, he ended up at the U-Box department in KC. The regional manager said she'd make sure guy in Wichita would respond to Brandt that day. An hour later he spoke with the manager in Wichita and that guy didn't know why the price was higher and didn't really know much of anything, for that matter.

I had offered to speak to these people and lay down the law, if needed. Brandt told me about his conversation with the manager and I promptly got on the phone. I went through the chain of transfers because it seems like no one at U-Haul knows what's going on. We think that they pay people to sit in an office and transfer people. Just a whole building full of phones lines being transferred to others. At least they're helping the job market!

I spoke with someone at the regional office in KC and expressed my dismay. I told him we could easily fly back to Wichita, rent a truck, and drive back for less. We could also have sold everything and bought it cheaper here than shipping for that price. He put me on hold several times and even had to call me back twice so he could check some things. He said that the shipping rates aren't determined by U-Haul. I told him that doesn't matter, there is no reason for a $1,000+ rise in price in a month with no explanation and no warning. We'd chosen U-Haul specifically because of the prices.

I didn't need to get angry because he was reasonable and worked with me. He ended up dropping the price quite a bit but the total was still more than what the website said on May 26. Now we have to wait until July 7 for our pods to arrive and pick them up ourselves to drive to the apartment. We'll be hanging out in a mostly empty apartment for a week and a half. At least we'll have WiFi!

I would not recommend using U-Haul if you're moving farther than across town. The managers (or at least this one) don't know much and you can expect to be transferred a minimum of four times all across the country. I've heard of them losing containers for up to three weeks and we're not the only ones they did this to with prices. I'm glad this nightmare is mostly over. Once we unload our pods, we'll never use U-Haul again. Four days of being in limbo and stressing about whether or not we could afford to ship our things was not pleasant nor needed during this upheaval in our lives.

We're excited about our place and I'll post pictures soon!