We hired a local moving company for a local move, and they use U-Haul rental trucks.
The original reservation was made by one of the moving company employees in mid-June for a June 28 move date. We found out a couple of days before the move date (in the peak of moving season!) that the reservation was cancelled by someone at the local U-Haul branch, with no explanation given. We were told "Everything is pushed back 24 hours. We might have a truck on Saturday" (the 29th). The next day, we were told "maybe on Sunday (the 30th) although it might be pushed back again". When I called to figure out what was going on, that's when I learned the reservation had simply been cancelled and no one could tell me why, when, or by whom, although they verified that the reservation had indeed been made originally. So at this point, our house was mostly packed up... it was not fun.
I called around to see if ANY other trucks were available from ANY vendor: Hertz, Ryder, etc. Not one truck available.
I personally made a new reservation for Tuesday, July 2, for 8am at the Rio Rancho location, for a 24' truck (we really wanted a 26' but this is all they had). This was the first thing available. Not so bad - only a few more days with a house full of boxes... On Sunday the 30th, I got a text changing the location to Central Ave. NE and pushing back the time to 2:30 PM that day. I called to find out what was going on and was told that the original truck needed maintenance. I expressed my frustration that there was no backup plan. I thought it was fishy that they already knew the truck needed maintenance several days before I was to pick it up (i.e. with potentially one or two more days of reservations in between...) This was starting to be a major inconvenience because as it was, we would now have the truck at 2:30 PM and start packing at perhaps 3:30 PM and probably go well into the night in order to get the job done.
On Tuesday morning the 2nd (now the date of the move), I received a text stating that it was now a 20' truck (I had reserved a 24' truck) and that it was now pushed back to 5PM!!! I promptly called and let the operator know that this was unacceptable and I would not stand for it. Our lives were totally upside down at that point, having packed all our belongings and even taken apart our bed frames, etc. I explained that 5 PM would NOT work (it would cause the move to be split across two days, wreaking havoc on our lives and probably costing us a good deal more in the process) and that a 20' truck was NOT big enough. I asked for a truck to be found, 24 or 26 ft, for the following morning at 8am, whatever it took "if you have to fly someone somewhere and drive a truck back here overnight".
The kind dispatcher (Kayla) put me on hold for quite a while to talk to her supervisor. When she came back, she had found a 26' truck available immediately (Tuesday morning, July 2) at yet another location. This saved U-Haul from complete embarrassment. I later learned that this was a "long-haul truck" that was not normally used for local moves. Either way, we finally got the move done, starting at 11:30 am and finishing at about 10:00 PM. The movers themselves (Albq. Apartment Movers) were great - their 2-man crew rolled with all of this nonsense and made themselves avaialble when we finally had the truck.
Here's what I think happened, but it is only a guess: local franchise owners or truck rental managers don't have enough inventory, and/or they rent out trucks to more lucrative customers (long-haul) and take them from previously reserved local customers. You may have another explanation, but with the above comedy of errors, I can only imagine that this happens to dozens or perhaps hundreds of customers during the peak moving season in the middle of the summer. If that is the case, U-Haul has serious problems. At the very least they simply do not know how to manage their business in the peak moving months.
The original dispatcher from the original location, Stephen Driscoll, that I tried to reach several times never picked up the phone. I called the general number to his location and left a message specificically asking for him to call me back and never received a return call. NOT GOOD, people. This is NOT how to treat customers.
I will say that I was offered a $50 credit to use at a U-Haul location. But I ask you this: for what? We've already moved! We don't need boxes, a truck, or anything else at this point. I may go in there just to buy packing tape or something else we can use. This credit helped a little bit, but did not really change the fact that our lives were upside down for several days and we were jerked around in a number of different ways.