Thank you for finally giving me a reason to get rid of my land line!

oh gawd...i have to rent a uhaul this saturday, and i don't have a land line...

I usually find that Penske is a much better route to take for truck rental. The seem to be pretty proactive on vehicle maintenance. Most U haul trucks I have been around do not need to be on the road.

Even if the price is a tad higher with Penske the nickle and dime antics you still come out ahead.

If you're under 25, they do this some times. They did it twice for me, asking for a landline number of a friend or family member. I gave them my friend's cell phone and they called it up and said "do you know person X?" that was about the extent of it. It's really dumb.

I know several people who only have cell phones. This policy is too clumbsy to actually be from corporate. What if a guy is renting a tuck, but his wife did the out going message on the answering machine?

An asshole in New Jersey? I've heard it all.

I can't believe they had the audacity to give you attitude when you questioned such an asinine policy.

Wow, glad I have a pickup truck...guess I won't require their draconian services. "Schnell! ID ! Papers! Not good enough ! NO TRUCK FOR YOU!".

I only have a cell phone as it is cheaper than having a land line AND cell phone.

As Jay hinted at, most U-haul locations are private franchises - so I highly doubt this is corporate policy.

I've never had a problem renting from U-haul without a land line - well, except for the problems with their broken down vehicles.

U-haul is the worst...

Uhaul sucks in 3....2.....1....

@swissdietcoke: Try going to a location that has Uhauls but isn't just a Uhaul store. Our local hardware place rents them without stupid demands. They didn't even charge us a deposit.

U-Haul is very decentralized so I don't take any stock in the way one particular office runs or treats its customers. My only perception of U-Haul as a whole is that its entire fleet is in decent enough condition for local moves but iffy for long-distance trips.

...and the point of renting a u-haul is that I'm moving and probably don't have a phone line...?

who has a land line anymore?

@Ethek: Couldn't agree more with your statement about Penske

The good thing about U-Haul is that it makes owning an SUV unnecessary for most people. The rental fees for the rare occasions when you absolutely need a truck/van are a real bargain compared to driving more than you need just to be able to haul bags of mulch from Home Depot.

Rent cargo vans from Enterprise and if you can get outside Jersey city, some of the hotel have really, really good rates.

We got vans on a couple of different occasions from Enterprise at the Crown Plaza in Seacaucus for <$25/day.

Rented a u-haul a year or so ago. I have no land-line phone...
I smell bullshit.

in my experience, the easiest and cheapest truck rental company to deal with is budget. i made an online reservation, received a reservation #. i called a few hours later to the local place to confirm, and showed up 9am the next morning and was in the truck driving in less than 10 minutes. use your amex card and you get a 15% discount.. in my case $33.99 for a 24'truck and $0.76 per mile.

"A second agent tried to step in and explain that the second card was because I was renting a truck and was a very expensive piece of equipment."

So if the truck broke, or wasn't returned in time, they were going to charge the cost of the truck to the credit cards?!?

I agree with renting from Penske, but in my area, they only offer commercial rentals. They seem to try hard to dissuade residential renters.

I rented a cargo van from U-Haul about 6 months back. I made the reservation online, had no trouble at the store, and had no trouble with the return (an after-hours return, at that!).

Now, Pub[l]ic Storage, on the other hand, is a different story. The night I wanted to move stuff is the night their gate broke down. I had to jump the fence in order to open the side door. Now, I'm about 5'7", 180lbs. I am in no way an athletic guy. It was a piece of cake to get over that fence. Yeah, it really made my possessions feel safe. No refund offered from the office, the bitch was rude, and I was told "there is no way for anyone to open the gate after hours." FAIL.

I moved my stuff into a place called A-1 Storage. The manager lives on-site, the rates were cheaper, and it was a much better looking grounds. They will probably receive my business again.

Landlines are a stupid ripoff. Okay, I understand that they are more reliable than cell phones. But under normal conditions they are just an unnecessary expense that offers less utility. They aren't portable and most get 10x the amount of garbage phone calls, even if you're on the DNC list.

OP should have just put his phone on silent and let it go to voicemail. Unless your greeting mentions the cell phone company, they have no way of knowing whether it's a "landline" which is a retarded policy in the first place.

oh jersey city! they've done this to me too many times.

the simple solution is, just put your cell phone on mute and give them that number.

OP should have called the U-Haul CEO's cell phone number!

[consumerist.com]

No problems with U-Haul in the past?

I've had nothing *but* problems with U-Haul in the past.

Robert really was better off not having a U-Haul. My mom's last trailer had wiring problems and blew a lot of her fuses on the side of the 401 outside of Toronto after dark in the winter, and U-Haul refused any help or service.

My last U-haul had no running lights, and I had to duct-tape some makeshift ones on.

...and while moving my girlfriend down this week we passed a U-Haul trailer with a whole wheel missing and a large number of visibly shaken victims next to the carnage.

I'll rent from anywhere but U-Haul, even if it costs more, just to know that the rental probably is much less likely to kill or maim me.

I had to rent a truck to move my 3 bedroom house a couple of months ago and used Penske. I highly recommend them over any experience I have ever had with U-Haul. There mileage rates were half of UHauls to begin with and the truck was about the same amount. When I arrived to pick up my truck they told me they did not have one but went out of there way to find me a truck and cut my mileage rates further and gave me the rate of a smaller truck! I was pretty upset when they told me they had no truck, but the representative went so above and beyond to fix the situation, I would gladly use them again.

Ah U-Haul, one of the old school evil companies. Good to see them still around, messing with the next generation. Like car dealerships, they are dependably sleazy year after year- the cockroaches of evil companies, prehistoric almost.

I've always just given them my cellphone number. Budget and Penske are sounding pretty good though...Definitely better than dealing with some reject on a power trip.

This cracks me up. A moving company - telling people who are moving and most likely have disconnected their landlines (since they no longer have a house) that they have to have a land line.

Give me a break.

@scarysnow: @johnva: I don't have a landline... but I do have Vonage which is close enough.

Why?

Many reasons. I only give coworkers, close friends, and family my cellphone number. I don't want to have to screen out the calls I don't want to get all day.

Sometimes I need to give out a phone number and I don't want the person to be able to easlily reach me (charities come to mind here, although I like to give to Leukemia & Lymphoma, or St. Judes, I don't want my phone going off in a meeting just because they want more money.

I make it a point not to call people on their cellphones unless I have tried their other numbers first. I have a direct line to make something on their belt buzz, disturbing them from whatever they happen to be doing -- is it that important that I bother them, or should I just leave them a message at home?

Also, if I want to call "Dick or Jane" who are married, and it doesn't matter who I get, should I call "Dick" or "Jane" or just their home number and see who picks up?

It may be because I am 32 and cellphones weren't cheap enough to own until about 8 years ago, so I grew up without needing to feel like I am in constant communication with the world...

My wife's newest vehicle is a Pick-up truck, mainly because of all the hime improvement we do, we got tired of dealing with U-Hauls BS! We rent cars for vacation and out of town trips all the time and never had a problem. Everytime we rented a U-Haul we got the 3rd degree or were accused of causing damage to the trucks!
Write down EVERY SCRATCH on the rental agreement before taking possesion! Every truck has tons of dents/Dings and they always try to pin them on us! They don't seem to do pre-rental inspections with you before renting, just have you initial it's "OK".(around here) Both of us have perfect driving records for 25+ years, no accidents! I'll be damned if I get accused of crashing or denting one of their trucks! Also be sure to check mechanical condition of the trucks, I've had one that was a sure death traps, returned it just after leaving the lot, should have never been on the road! (Barely moved, stopped even worse. They told us it would clear up after it got warmed up! (YEAH RIGHT!!!!!)

Did he choose the red pill or the blue pill?

Looks like I might have to rent a pickup from a rental than UHaul. Was going to be using their services this weekend.

I used to live in Jersey City, and I am very familiar with this particular U-Haul agency. They are ROYAL pains in the ass; they were kicked out of the local Rotary Club a few years back and there are several complaints against them with the BBB.

@darkryd: Thank you! I kept thinking the whole time I was reading it, am I the only one who thinks its weird for people who are supposedly moving to have a landline still in use!

GrandCentral FTW!

@HIV 2 Elway: "An asshole in New Jersey? I've heard it all."

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I'm gonna go ahead and say that he wanted a second credit card because he was afraid the limit on the first card wasn't high enough to cover whatever fees he plans on stiffing you with.

The franchise owned U-hauls are hit and miss. I rented one a few weeks ago and the guy gave us pressure to buy the "safe move" policy - even though he made "no money" off of it. He acted like -everyone- bought it and without it you would need to be responsible for the entire cost of the truck if something were to happen. He mentioned that this was the largest truck U-haul offers and was very expensive. His story:

"I had a lady a few months back who didn't have the Safe Move policy, hit an overpass, ripped off the top of the U-haul and got rear-ended. Uhaul was asking this lady for the money the next day. "

We have rented from this location before and it always takes close to 45 minutes for anything, trailer, large truck, etc. However, we rented from another franchise a year or so ago and we were in and out within 7 minutes. U-haul seems to have very little control on how the franchisees do business. No quality control whatsoever. There are apparently some responsibilities that these franchises have and they are not always followed, doing walkarounds BEFORE they rent out a truck, cleaning the interior, etc. You would think they would at least check the tire pressure, oil, lights, etc.

I rented a trailer from uhaul in NJ last week.. I needed a 6x12 open trailer, which I know is a bit much for my V6 Toyota Tacoma, but I only had to move something 10 miles on backroads. I rented the same trailer with a single phone number 2 weeks prior from the same location.

This week, they demanded 2 phone numbers, and then proceeded to tell me that my truck was unable to pull the trailer, as it needed a vehicle with a GVW of 3500lbs. My truck is 3400 lbs. They only rented me the trailer after they looked in the computer for my prior rentals of the same trailer from the same location.

I should also add that at the prior rental, they attached the trailer incorrectly and it FELL OFF THE HITCH. Thankfully I was only going about 30 when it happened and my truck nor the trailer were damaged. I inspected their work quite closely this time.

I've never had this problem with Uhaul, but I can see how the franchises might be spotty, as others have mentioned. I've mostly gone to large locations that were just uhaul hubs. I've picked up trucks and trailers, and I've never had an issue. In fact, a uhaul in Missoula even fixed my faulty wiring (in my car hitch) for no cost.

When dealing with U-Haul rentals, it is best to remember that there are almost no corporate rental locations. Corporate U-Haul serves mainly to service the franchises and to track where the trucks and trailers are. Corporate does not handle the rental transactions nor are they responsible for supporting rental customers. Generally, any complaints to corporate are met with a simple "that location is an independently owned franchise." If I were the OP in this situation, I would have just left that station and found another close by. Even the most remote locations have more than one u-haul franchise.

@SkokieGuy: You're 18 minutes late!

@AD8BC: I think it's a bit of a cultural thing.

I just don't give a phone number to charities, or I give a fake one if their website insists or something. They don't need that information to take my money. Other solicitation calls are drastically reduced just because it's not a landline.

As for screening calls, I find it's much easier with a cellphone than with a landline. I never have an audible ring active on my phone, so annoying me while I'm meeting with someone isn't such an issue and I just check for missed calls when I'm free. As for calling other people for non-urgent issues, that's what I consider email to be for.

@timmus:

I've actually had quite the opposite experience:

They rent the dinosaurs out for in-town, and the newer ones with the un-fun bland paint job for the long-distance.

The worst was the in-town one we got that turned out to be from Canada...complete with a speedometer in km/h and no mph, a non-functioning parking brake, and a rear ramp that flew out and hit the car behind us as we accelerated at an intersection.

To their credit, they didn't call a collections agency when we did a chargeback lol.

They were trying to do you a favor by preventing you from renting from them. We used Uhaul from ND to OR, and our truck broke down in the mountains in road construction where there wasn't a shoulder to pull over on. Yeah. Never again.

Even if you make the reservation, they probably won't have your truck when the time comes anyway. U-Haul is easily my least favorite company in the world after they screwed me out of a truck on my moving day last year.

Sounds like some bullsh*t to me. Try to talking to a manager. I rented a truck last year when I moved and had no problem with just a cell phone number.