U Haul Ripping Off A Welfare Recipient? How Dare They?!! Clinton Massachusetts
On the first week of November, 2007, I moved from Lancaster, Massachusetts to Springfield to live with my mother. Since she had no room for my furniture, I stored it at the Clinton, Mass. facility. I was not able to find a job in Springfield, so I applied for welfare and qualified for benefits in March 2008. Meanwhile I had run out of money and my payments were getting behind. After I started recieving my welfare money, I contacted U Haul and agreed to pay them $200.00 a month until my payments were caught up.
Then I had a medical emergency and ended up owing $300.00 to the ambulance company. I told Greg, the U Haul Manager, about it and said that I would be paying them $100.00 a month until the ambulance company was paid off. He was very pleasant to me over the phone.
Then I started receiving nasty letters from their office, stating that I had failed to make my March payment, and they charged me an extra $100.00. I had been sending them money by this time, so why hadn't they been applying it to my balance? It sounded like they were deliberately mismanaging my money and then charging me for their behavior! I confronted them about it, but they refused to take the charges off my bill! I told them I was on welfare and that I was paying all of the money I could, but it didn't matter to them. I think it is a criminal act to exploit a person who is living on a government stipend by increasing the size of their bills!
Now they're threatening to take my furniture away and sell it at auction if I don't pay the $420.55 they claim I owe them by September 22nd. I can't do it. I don't make that much money per month.
I would appreciate any help you can give me. Thank you for your time.
Anonymous
Springfield, Massachusetts
U.S.A.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Chex
Shadowsville,Other,
U.S.A.
Recurring bills are your responsibility
#3Consumer Comment
Sat, August 30, 2008
You signed an agreement to rent space from U-haul for some amount per month. This amount is a regularly recurring bill, and it is non-negotiable. This isn't some handshake agreement between friends that can be adjusted on-the-fly. You are very lucky U-Haul has let you slide as long as they have. Your agreement probably states that if you are 14 or 30 days late, they can clear your stuff out and sell it at auction three days after that.
Regardless of whether you are on welfare, regardless of WHERE your income (if any) is coming from, you will always need to pay your bills. You need to add up all your bills (rent, rent on storage spaces, all the credit cards, the phone, the gas, electric, water, car payment, internet, cable, things like Netflix, and on and on) and see how much you need to be earning to be able to pay them. Before you accept a job, figure out how much it will pay per month. If it will pay less than you are spending, you will either need to get a second job or cut down on expenses.
If you can't pay your bills, the business will eventually stop bothering with you and take whatever measures they can (kick you out of your apartment, sell your stuff in storage, repossess your car, cut off your phone, water, electricity, or gas, or whatever depending on what company you're dealing with, of course).
Peter
Pony,Alabama,
U.S.A.
The real rip off here ...
#3Consumer Comment
Fri, August 29, 2008
I find it incredibly ridiculous that you feel you are being ripped-off simply because you failed to uphold your end of the contractual agreement you signed with U-Haul. It is not U-Haul's problem that you moved to a new location with no job and no hopes of finding one, that you did not budget appropriately and take unforeseen expenses into consideration.
And as for your comment about "how dare they rip off a welfare recipient..."
A) You were not ripped off, as explained above.
B) Many people would consider a 'welfare recipient' to be ripping off our government at the expense of the taxpayers.
You have no sympathy here!