Express Storage

Ultimately I did not end up renting a unit here, but the help I received from Jill was just FIRST CLASS. They have had problems in the past, but I figure that makes them the most secure, vigilant place around. They have done a lot to increase the security of individual units and Jill made me feel very comfortable and confident that I was making a secure choice. They had great prices too!

As anyone that’s moved can probably tell you, U-​haul as a company has its ups and downs. Some people have good luck, some people have bad luck. U-​box, the PODS-​like service they now offer, isn’t quite like that. Look at reviews for five minutes on them, and they’re mostly negative. True to form, our move from Boise to Seattle was a nightmare with U-​box.
The one advantage that U-​box has over PODS and other competitors is the price. At almost $ 1000 less, each box costing a bit higher than $ 500, it gets easy to lose sight of quality in favor of a deal. Honestly, though, it comes back to haunt you. You’re getting exactly what you pay for… eventually.
First off, it’s important to know that U-​box has absolutely no way of tracking your boxes, which wouldn’t be a problem if you could A) be assured your boxes arrived on time, and B) they had a reliable call system. Unfortunately, U-​box has neither. Instead, it offers a bafflingly convoluted call system that transfers you from a local center to a call center every time the local line gets busy. This means that if you were calling a local center in Washington and the line gets disconnected, you may try again and be rerouted to a center anywhere in the United States, with all the annoying press 1, press 2 phone trees you can handle, and no possibility to be redirected back.
But the real fun began when we ordered two U-​boxes and immediately found that they had tacked on hundreds of dollars in additional charges for an
imaginary 17-​foot truck due to a technical glitch on their end. It took three calls to get this resolved (two of which had no idea u-​box could charge for trucks) but they finally removed it.
The boxes were delivered on June 23^rd and picked up on the 24^th.
In addition to the technical glitch that caused us to be charged for a truck for a while, there was another glitch in their auto-​payment system. They didn’t tell us about this glitch until we called them, and we were informed that since the system thought we hadn’t paid, they hadn’t shipped our boxes. We resolved this, but by then, they had already billed us again and we had to call them again resolving the bill.
The boxes were then (allegedly) shipped on the 29^th. That’s when they took took the money out of our account, and that’s when the woman on the phone said they had shipped. We had wanted our boxes moved from Boise to Seattle by the 27^th or 28^th.
We were quoted as it taking up to five business days from shipping, and that they wouldn’t work on holidays.
We called again to complain on July 7^th, and were told it was actually seven days, not the five we had been told, and that for whatever reason, our boxes didn’t get shipped until July 1^st; meaning that on Thursday the 30^th, for whatever reason, they did nothing. Since they were shipped on a Friday now, they did nothing for Saturday, Sunday, and then Monday because it was the Fourth of July. Of course, on July fifth and sixth, they also did nothing, When I called to complain, we were told that our stuff didn’t technically have to arrive until July 12^th, but that we could call the Auburn store and see if our boxes had arrived yet.
So we called the Auburn store. I was put on hold for about six minutes while an employee tried to check if they had arrived before the phone hung up for some reason. I tried to call back, but was rerouted to a call center. I tried again, and was put on the phone with a lady that said the original guy I had talked to was now on the phone with another customer, and if I could wait. I asked if I could at least know if the boxes were there, and she eventually told me they were and would arrive tomorrow. I asked when, so I could actually be there to unload the boxes, and finally got «between 9 and noon» out of them. By this point, it was July 8^th. Our boxes were shipped out on June 24^th, meaning that we had been 14 days without any of our things in a completely new city, sleeping on the floor of an empty apartment. Two weeks wondering if you’ll even see your stuff again gets old fast.
Luckily, the boxes were delivered the following day, but for so much money, we shouldn’t have had to deal with all this. If you can, your best bet is to drive a trailer yourself, but barring that, it’s worth the money to avoid U-​box like the plague.