I used U-Haul to move and had no problems. The rate was fair and everything went smoothly. I was able to get the truck with no hassle. The staff was knowledgeable about moving processes, and it beat paying a mover!

If your renting a truck from U-Haul, don't plan on close pick up or reimbursement!
Made a reservation on June 26, 2008 for a 14 ft truck for a move from Fairmont, MN to So. Sioux City, NE, on Aug. 2, 2008(170 miles). There is a U-Haul Rep in Fairmont. Got a message from U-Haul at 6:00 PM Aug. 1, 2008, No 14 ft truck available, but they will sub a 17 ft truck for same price. The Catch: I have to drive to Mankato, MN to get truck,(51 miles from Fairmont), 102 miles round trip! I phoned Customer service right away & all I got was "we are sorry but we do not guarantee a pick up location, even though there is a dealer in Fairmont, but will provide eguipment at the most convenient location with available equipment"! So I emailed a Customer Action Form next. Got no response! (Did get response next day while move in progress, BIG HELP). No time to make other arraingments at 8:00 PM on a friday night for a move planned at 7:30 AM the next day, so I drove the extra miles and spent the extra 2.5 hours to pick up the truck and decided I would fight with U-Haul later. The BATTLE was long and disappointing! The first phone call I got referencing my complaint resulted in 20 minutes of arguing and being offered a $20.00 gift certificate to be used on my NEXT move! I declined the offer and hung up! To make a long story short; After countless hours spent, on the phone, sending Emails and contacting the BBB, I was only able to get $25.00 for fuel for the rental truck and $20.00 for fuel for my vehicle for the 102 miles extra, Nothing for the 2.5 hours spent driving the extra miles for 2 of us. And since I accepted the $45.00, the BBB considers the compaint resolved!

The capper to this mess is I found out later that, had I known I would have to drive to Mankato to get a truck, I could have rented a truck from BUDGET Rental for $150.00 less for the same move!!!! I am going to post this on every site I can find as I am finding out now that this is a common practice of U-Haul and EVERYONE needs to know it! It is unacceptable!

If it were possible to give a lower score, I would. Truck pickup was not where it was suppose to be forcing me to drive to the other side of town. U-Haul tells you at 5:00pm the day before and they are off the hook. No consideration, a bad attitude accompanies lame excuses for why they don't have what you paid to get.

Don't rent from U-Haul, having a reservation means nothing.

In preparation for taking my son down to college, his first time off campus, my wife and I went to our local U-Haul dealer on 9 August 2008. We reserved a 10' truck for pickup on 15 August 2008 for a one way trip to Blacksburg VA. The reservation number was 2828963.

We were told that we would be called the evening before to tell us the local dealer we could where we would pick up the truck.

As promised, we were called on 14 August and told that we could pick up our reserved truck at the Chantilly, VA location after 4:00 PM on 15 August, but that the truck would be a 14' because no 10' trucks were available. We agreed to accept a 14' even though that would mean higher fuel costs.

On 15 August we were called by U-Haul less than 2 hours before our pickup time and told we would have to go to Winchester, VA to pick up the truck. Winchester is approximately 50 miles away almost a quarter of the way to Blacksburg.

The allowed milage on the truck would have been enough to cover our originally planned trip, but not to cover the addition of the mileage to pick up the truck. Also we would have had to pay for additional fuel for the truck, plus a 100 miles of fuel for the car to go pick up truck.

The local U-Haul refused to pickup the truck in Winchester, and the Winchester store refused to bring it to Chantilly. The local dealer told us we would have to call U-Haul reservations to resolve this issue. We called the number provided 3 separate times, waiting with a phone ringing up to 25 minutes.

We finally decided to find another source for the truck, because of the short (no) notice, the only thing we could find was going to be approximately $800.00, over 2.5 times the price we had planned.

We were forced to change our plans and reschedule our trip until mid-week. We now have another reservation with another rental company.

We had made our plans around the original schedule. Because we had to change our schedule, we also missed our granddaughters birthday party, had to reschedule the install of cable and internet in Blacksburg, had to reschedule the unload help we had arranged in Blacksburg, both my wife and I had to reschedule dentist appointments, we had to reschedule time off from work, we had to reschedule our dog/house sitter.

After, we had rearranged our plans, more than 3 hours after this mess started we were called by U-Haul saying they had a truck in Arlington, much closer, but we had already made a new reservation, and had rescheduled everything except the dentists appointment.

Obviously, having a reservation means nothing at U-Haul and I think all potential customers need to know that.

I have also entered this same info in the U-Haul customer service site. I did get an email back asking me to contact them at a given number, despite trying three times I have not been able to get through to the person who sent the email..

Also the email contained the following veiled threat: "You are hereby on notice that this E-mail message is confidential and proprietary. THIS E-MAIL MESSAGE IS SPECIFICALLY INTENDED FOR USE BY THE RECIPIENT FOR WHICH IT IS ADDRESSED. AS THE DESIGNATED RECIPIENT OR UNINTENDED RECIPIENT, YOU ARE HEREBY PROHIBITED FROM ANY DISCUSSION, DISSEMINATION, DISPLAY, DISCLOSURE, REPRODUCTION OR COPYING OF THIS E-MAIL MESSAGE. ANY THIRD PARTY DISCLOSURE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED THIS E-MAIL MESSAGE IN ERROR, PLEASE DELETE."