I reserved a U haul van on line for one day. I was given the option on line of declining their insurance coverage which I did. When I arrived at the U haul facility in Kensington, MD. The manager told me that his printer was not working but asked for my charge card to bill the account pursuant to the reservation. I gave him my debit card and was not presented with a form contract to review or a printed contract and assumed that they would be deducting or putting the amount on hold. The manager gave me the company business card and wrote the mileage on the back of the card. I was being charged. 59 per mile. When I turned on the van I saw that the mileage quoted was incorrect. They were going to bill me for several miles which the previous user had already paid them for. I advised the manager that the mileage was wrong and don't know if he made a note of it or not.
The next day I returned the van and as I awaited my turn to pay which took about one half hour due to the fact that there was a young lady disputing with Billy the day manager that she had already been charged for the use of her rental. But he wanted to charge her again. I did not think anything of it and assumed that she was being too technical and that it would all be resolved between her credit card company and U haul. She was still there when I was finally addressed by a different gentleman. I was then advised that insurance was mandatory and that they had to charge me an additional $10.00. I advised them that I had opted out of the insurance. The gentleman I was dealing with said to me" well I guess you are fu. Ed." I figured that I would deal with it later as I had already been there for 40 minutes trying to return the Van.
When I returned to my office, I learned that they had debited my bank account for three times the amount of the quoted charge. Other than the online agreement they had no authority to withdraw any money from my account and the online agreement quoted $29.95 plus tax. I called the rental facility to try and straighten it out. They told me at 5:30 in the afternoon that the customer service center was open until 7:00pm. When I called that number they told me that the customer service center closed at 5:00 pm. I left a message and was called back in the morning and repeated the fact that I was overbilled by three times the amount quoted and that I should not have had to pay for insurance.
They agreed to refund my $10.00 within three to five days. They also said that I would be repaid the overcharge within three to five days. I advised them that that was not acceptable and unless I received an immediate refund I would notify several entities including Ripoff report. My concern with their holding onto my funds for an extended period time stems from my knowledge that large companies play the float on the dollar. One can only imagine the number of transactions they engage in on a daily basis times 365 per year and you can see that they are taking advantage of customers by using customers overcharged accounts and receiving the interest on I suspect millions of dollars which does not belong to them. I placed several phone calls and spent at least 5 hours trying to resolve this matter with their local franchise as well as their corporate office in Phoenix. Their business practices are clearly improper and I suspect illegal. I would be pleased to be a lead Plaintiff against this company in a class action, should that be an appropriate remedy.
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