my love of U-Haul grows every day, like a tumor (558 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 1.5 on 4 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by HZRD (View user info) at 2005-07-12 16:54:58 EDT
Hey, if you aren't going to need to move for the next decade or so, click the link above, -2 me and write 'WTF I'm not reading all thaT". But if you're ever interested in using a moving rental service, sit right back and I'll tell you a tale that will make your pancreas bleed with sticky sorrow. It's a good PSA anyway.
Up until moving out of DC into sunny NoVA, I had never used a moving van rental service before. Hell, I wasn't even going to make a reservation and just show up at the place the day I wanted to move. That was until a co-worker laughed at me and told me I'd have an easier time running on ice in those slippy feet thingies that are on the bottom of the one piece pajamas you wore as a kid. I miss my He-Man pajamas. *SNIFF
I called the week before the big move and reserved a large truck with U-Haul. The first place I call didn't even answer but had a busy signal instead. That should have been my first clue. The second place I called I should have hung up and tried another service but on the seventh ring (I'm a determined to make shit work kind of guy) this gruff black woman picked up the phone and said "Whadyoo want?" Now I bet you're asking yourself (if you are a hippie PETA vegan douche) "How do you know she was black? You're about as black as a snowflake!" Shut it, I work with loud obnoxious black women and I know these things, you Californian fashion zombie.
We'll call this woman McGruff, mostly because I giggle matching up her voice to the animated face of McGruff the crime dog. After telling her when I wanted to move and the size truck I wanted, she laughs. It wasn't a cute little schoolgirl giggle or an endearing "HO HO!" like my man S to the Claus, but a mad scientist laugh that was watching his archenemy and his wife who had cheated on him with Igor being lowered into the pit of lava kind of laugh. After I shouldered that, I then I told her I wanted it for all that day and the laughter stopped mid-gaffaw. "You cain't HAVE it all day!!! Was wrong wichoo?"
...I'm sure this prepares you for the absolutely non-greased inmate named "Little Tyrone" kind of ramming in the ass I was about to receive from U=Haul. Ugh my butt hurts recalling this tale.
I was given a reservation number and told I was going to be called back 3 days prior to the reservation to confirm. It got to 4PM that day, and I called the same place back. Busy signal. I dialed again five minutes later, busy signal. Same shit a third time. I call an hour later and I am greeted again by Ms. McGruff, "DAMN you blowin' up ALLLLLLL my lines!" She gave me a number of the store I was supposed to reach and the U-Haul hotline number. "I ain't got time for this!" Thanks, McGruff!
I'll shortly run through the chain of event because it would make you severely want to kill someone (maybe me) if I wrote the horrific chain of events out.
I call the hotline and wait a modest 15 minutes, and they sound genuinely confused when I present them the situation. I am given the number for regional. The rep at regional laughs when I tell him the name of the store that told me to call and gives the phone number and reservation of the store I am going to get the truck from, but it's in the afternoon, not the morning, and 15 miles away.
I show up that Friday to a DC location and try to pick up my car. They don't have it and want to give me a smaller truck. They are quite insistent that I take the smaller truck at no discount to me. I overhear someone on the line telling a man to bring his truck back because he is late. It seems it's the same size as the truck I reserved. Foreshadowing? Probably. They call regional and reserve me a truck (after 45 minutes on hold) in "Hyattsville, MD. It's only five miles away." They actually print me out a crappy Mapquest map. Cool! Thanks, jerks!
After a total of 2 hours of waiting combined with 45 minutes of driving later, we have our truck. My roommate and I load up the shit and head out, planning on making a second trip and 10 miles down the road, in an Arlington park's parking lot, we break down, smoke billowing out of the front.
We call U-Haul on my dying cell phone. I do not have anything to write with AT ALL (Dog forbid), which apparently is a problem because I cant't possibly remember my help number, and cannot proceed to wait 45 minutes on hold without it. I lie and then wait. Basically, because I think we are in Alexandria (which we are not a half a mile from) and I tell the guy this, he cannot locate us on the map, and he cannot help up. "What's the cross-street?" "15th and Whatever St." "I can't find 15th and Whatever St. on the map in Alexandria." "IT'S LITERALLY A TENTH OF THE MILE PAST THE NATIONAL MALL, IN A PARK PARKING LOT, RIGHT OFF 395 ON ROUTE 1." He tells me he can't help me and will not let me speak to his manager, then simply hangs up.
Furious, I call back. My phone dies waiting to speak to a rep. My roommate walks down to use the phone at the mall. It is 9:45 when he leaves me in the darkening park parking lot and 11:15 when he shows back up. Because we are not at the mall, the truck cannot come and get us, nor will it meet him there, nor will they even tryif it was a valid place, because THEY WILL NOT USE A PAYPHONE AS A POINT OF REFERENCE FOR SERVICE. Like everyone has a cell phone with a battery life of INFINITY. He gets denied permission to speak to a supervisor as well. Hey, at least he brought sandwiches and coffee. I almost forgot, I had my first smoke in over six months when this happened. And then the second and third as I waited for him to return.
With the small amount of change I luckily have in my pocket, I proceed to walk to the mall and call my girlfriend who had never driven down this way. She waits it out with us until 3AM when Grizzly Adams, our tow truck driver who was called to come all the way the hell down from Baltimore to come get us, shows up. All that is wrong is that the radiator is sans a hose and there is NO FLUID IN THE RADIATOR.
He tows us to our new home and on the way he tells us how some of the U-Haul fleet is OVER 28 YEARS OLD. I don't know of a single GMC is that has actually been driven with any regularity that has lasted for more than 15, let alone a fucking gigantic U-Haul truck. A cable snaps on the back of the tow truck five miles in to the trip, leaving us with no option but to drive the last mile home. It billows smoke the whole way.
We arrive at four thirty in the morning and sleep on the floor. The next morning, the callback game starts at 10AM and does not end until Sunday the following day. We show up to the Virginia location 30 miles out of our way to pick up the truck, supposedly free of charge. We get there and are notified after 45 minutes that the truck is unsafe to drive. We wait another hour and 15 and get the truck. The ordeal is over! HOORAY!
But it's not. I still ended up getting charged 36 dollars. I called and spoke to a customer service rep and when I started to get angry, she hung up on me. Mind you I waited on hold for an hour and a half, which is apparently a blink in the eye of a U-Haul customer service rep.
Back to a full pack a day. THANKS U-HAUL, YOU ARE THE SEXIEST AND GREATEST.
User Reviews
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2005-07-13 08:36:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Agreed, U-Haul is the suck. Less than ten minutes after I'd left the store with my truck, it died in the middle of the road - bad battery, broken distributor cap. I swear they never run the POS's through any maintenance.
It's a heck of a lot easier to just have four or five friends with pickup trucks help out, and cheaper too.
Submitted by TheGirlWithoutATitle (user info) at 2005-07-13 05:48:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
That man has a nipple ring.
Submitted by yermom (user info) at 2005-07-12 17:43:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I will +2 this because of the shitstorm that U-haul created for my girlfriend when she was trying to move a couple weeks back, basically, she called and reserved the truck, then the day before, they called her back to tell her that the truck wasn't there, long story short, she had to call off work, and there were only 3 people to move all her shit inot a 3rd floor apartment, but at least Budget rental trucks got her money instead of U-Haul. Fuckers!
Submitted by Xcuses (user info) at 2005-07-12 16:57:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
WTF, I'm not reading all that
You told me to