Our U-Haul Near Death Experience (Long Read)
Date: June 2, 2012
Time: Reservation for 4:30 PM pick-up
Location: U-Haul, 5519 6 St SE Calgary
Equipment: 17’ U-Haul Truck
Moving: NW Condo to SW Home
Picked up the U-Haul from the above location and encountered a very lets just say rude employee who gave us our keys. Did not mention anything to us and in fact didn’t even get us to sign the rental agreement, she just put a line right through-it where we were supposed to sign. We didn’t realize this until after the ‘incident’ which you will read about. Furthermore, my friend kept going on that day about some documentary he saw about rental companies and how we should not rent from them and blah blah, we didn’t really pay to much attention to his concerns. But what resonates with me now is when we were doing the little walk around process of marking the U-Haul with an ‘X’ sticker for any damages, the same friend joked with the U-Haul employee and said “Are these things even safe to drive?” where the employee who shall remain nameless said jokingly “No, half of them don’t even stop!”, we didn’t think anything of it and moved on.
We drove the U-Haul truck to our NW Condo that we were renting with no issues. Once at the condo, we proceeded to load all our contents from the condo into the 17’ U-Haul truck, this took us approximately 4 hours to complete. There were 5 of us in total assisting with the move including myself and my fiancé.
At approximately 9:00 PM we were ready to depart to a friend’s house, where we would be dropping off one couch. I was driving the U-Haul with a friend as a passenger, my brother was in a mini-van which was also loaded with contents, my friend was also in a mini-van loaded with contents and my fiancé was driving our vehicle. Our friends place is approximately 10 minutes away from our condo, so we decided to all head there together. My brother and fiancé went at their own pace, I was driving a lot slower with my friend in the mini-van following behind me so when I would need to do a lane change I would signal he would complete the lane change when safe and id know it was ok for me to then make the change as well.
When we arrived at our friends we quickly unloaded the couch, hung around for a few minutes and proceeded to leave promptly. It was getting late and we only had a few minutes of sunlight left to start unloading into our house. Same idea as before, the fiancé and brother would head over to the house at their own pace start unloading their vehicles and myself, passenger and friend following would arrive later as we were obviously driving slower with the loaded U-haul truck.
The route we would take would be Stoney Trail to Glenmore Trail to 14 Street. Once seeing the 14th Street SW exit, I signaled and completed the merge from Glenmore Trail. At this this point we were probably travelling approximately 60-70 km/h, after starting to straighten the steering wheel, all of a sudden the U-Haul jerked us pushing us sharp left, making some loud noises at the same time. It was hard to control the truck, the steering wheel became very heavy; we then jerked to the right and then back to the left at this point I was able to regain control and we came to a complete stop. While these uncontrollable jerks were happening, it was evident that the whole truck especially the back where all our items were was swaying back and forth. I immediately felt like we were going to tip over, I don’t know how we didn’t but maybe there was someone watching over us. This happened so quickly and with so much force we were swaying around inside like rag dolls inside, I drilled my shoulder into the window, snapped my neck side to side, heard a loud thump which was my friends head hitting the window but luckily I did not panic and was able to gain control of the truck. Fortunately there were no cars beside us in the two lanes otherwise we would have side swiped everything in our way. Our initial plan was to take Deerfoot Trail but thankfully we made that stop at our friends house first, if we had gone that route I am certain there would have been a different outcome to this.
Anyways, back to the story after re-gaining control we slowly drove to the right hand lane and stopped. Our friend behind us had seen all this unfold, he parked behind us and came running to the truck. My friend and I got out with our hearts pumping and trying to come to grips with what just happened. My initial thought was that the tire or something had popped so we looked down around and couldn’t see anything. We then decided to take the next exit which was the Rocky View Hospital which I think is 75th Ave and the first right there on Eagle Ridge Drive or something like that. It was a safe place to park with lots of lighting we got out and discovered this:
After regaining our composure and making sure we weren’t hurt too badly we counted our blessings and called U-Haul Roadside Assitance. After talking with someone from a call center in the USA, it took this person 20 minutes alone just to find our coordinates. After this point, the next step was that they were going to dispatch their service tech/towing person, they would call me back and let me know. At this point my brother and fiancé had arrived, we waited a minimum of 45 minutes and the lady finally called back said they had nobody to come out and that we would have to deal with it tomorrow. At this point it was late between 11-12 AM, all our stuff packed including clothes and toiletries and nowhere to stay. My fiancé was on the phone with a couple different people on their customer service line and they told us no problem find a hotel and keep your receipts for dinner/breakfast and the location will reimburse us. We locked the U-Haul and as we were all starving and hadn’t ate for hours, we proceeded to Tom’s Pizza to eat. Our friends were nice enough to allow us to spend the night so we didn’t need to stay in any hotels.
On June 3rd we received a call in the afternoon from City Wide towing and U-Haul informing us that the truck will be towed to our house so we could finish unloading. At the same time we proceeded to go to the U-Haul location to speak to the manager. We asked a few questions to the Supervisor and were informed that there is no routine inspections done on U-Haul’s other than a physical inspection and only time they do an inspection is if a previous customer has reported it. She was quite dismissive and we were informed to speak to the Manager who was not in and she in fact did not even have any knowledge of our incident that had occurred the day before. From this point, we headed back to our house which had the U-Haul truck towed right out front. Once we opened the door it was quite evident due to the jerking around of the truck a lot of our contents were all over the place and some items were even damaged. My fiancé called in to report this as well. At this point my friend and I were feeling the soreness of being thrown around in the U-Haul so we weren’t quite useful during the move; we had some more friends come to complete the move.
On June 4th, on the way to work I called City Wide Towing to let them know that the truck was ready to be towed back to U-Haul. They informed me they needed a PO # from U-Haul, so I had to call them. I retrieved the business card that was given to me by the Supervisor the day before and called the number. A gentleman picked up who was not the manager and was also apparently not at the location but was taking the calls. I gave him my information to have the Manager call me back and also informed him that there truck is ready to be picked up. In the afternoon, I began to receive automated text messages from U-Haul stating that we have an overdue U-Haul rental. I called the location back to once again let them know that they can tow back the truck. At this point the person told me that they cannot complete this request and that I have to call back U-Haul Roadside Assistance and let them know. After waiting on the phone, I notified there call center in the USA that they can take back the truck, I received a call back a short while later from them notifying me that City Wide was on their way.
At this point we hadn’t heard from the Manager, so once again we called him to try to meet with him. We got a hold of him and let him know we would be there shortly. Upon arriving, he greeted us and we went over what had happened. He told us we would not have to pay for the truck and to provide him the receipts for reimbursement. After providing the receipts he was just about to reimburse us and the last second he said that he had to call his traffic manager. After calling the traffic manager he informed us that he cannot complete the reimbursements as the truck was not there yet and that the traffic manager would be calling us tomorrow. At this point we had been very civil, reasonable and understanding. I told him we cannot keep driving back and forth and that we just want to put this nightmare behind us, and told him to just reimburse us like your company told us you would do. At this point, things get tense and the original guy who did the walk-through and told us that some U-Haul’s don’t stop buts in and mentions we didn’t even get insurance and that we signed a contract! I proceeded to show him the contract and where they failed to get my signature, at this point the manager basically tells him to shut-up. Seeing that this is getting us nowhere I tell the manager we will wait for this other person to call us.
Today, on June 5th I get a call from this ‘traffic manager’ and she asks me right away to send her the receipts. I tell her that I will call her back as I was at work and on way to a meeting so I take down her email and phone number. I send this information off to my fiancé who then calls her back. When my fiancé called her back they went over what happened etc. and the lady informs us that we still have to pay for the truck + KM's but they will reimburse us for a meal. She then proceeds to say things like:
- oh hunny this isn’t a cash call I mean you have to admit this is kind of funny one person’s neck is hurting and the other person’s back and you have damaged contents which means you didn’t pack it good enough
- your fiancé looks fine we have him on video
- this is a false claim, you are going to get a lawsuit against you
- this one is going to be fun
At this point, my fiancé is fed up with her and calls back to speak to someone else but they keep transferring directly to her as she is apparently the only manager. This is where it stands as of now.
At no point did we mention we want anything from U-Haul, only what they had told us that they were going to do which is reimbursement of the rental fees and our dinner. There has been no sympathy, level of service or any indication U-Haul remotely cares about their customers. At the end of the day we’re just glad that we walked away from this with minimal injuries as it could have been a lot worst. This has been a very traumatic experience and U-Haul has been an absolute nightmare to deal with.
Edit: Inside Edition's Investigation into U-Haul Trailers:
Edit: CTV's W-FIVE InvestigationEdit: Someone with a similar story made this site, you can find more stories in the blog section:After renting 13 U-Haul trucks across the country, W-FIVE found not a single one passed basic provincial standards. Each truck required some sort of maintenance to make it roadworthy. Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/WFive/2005...#ixzz1x1lQmIG3
U-Haul Sucks
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i don't suppose there are any other options, aside from getting a movign company? I have to tow a car, too. 
