U-Haul Class Action Says ‘Reservation Guarantee’ is No Guarantee At All

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A New York plaintiff says U-Haul fails to deliver on its “reservation guarantee” policy, leaving do-it-yourself movers without the equipment they ordered or compensation for their inconvenience.

Plaintiff Trang Nguyen claims U-Haul International Inc. routinely confirms moving equipment rentals to customers who are then forced to wait much longer than their scheduled pick-up times or required to travel to other U-Haul locations.

She says this practice runs contrary to U-Haul’s nationwide advertising campaign which promises movers a “reservation guarantee.”

According to the U-Haul class action lawsuit, the company’s policy states “When you make a truck or trailer reservation, we guarantee to provide you with the equipment size, location and pick up time, as agreed. Should you not receive the equipment size, location and pick up time you agreed to, U-Haul will pay you $50.”

Nguyen alleges that reasonable customers, such as herself, would naturally expect that the moving equipment they rent would be at the location they selected or they would receive the “reservation guarantee” compensation of $50. However, she claims that doesn’t happen.

The U-Haul lawsuit says Nguyen reserved a cargo trailer rental online this past April and selected a U-Haul facility in Flushing, New York as her pick up location. Nguyen then received an email confirming her order which directed her to use U-Haul’s “Express Online Check-In” for faster in-store service.

Nguyen says she followed the steps to check-in electronically and received another confirmation of her order which stated “Congratulations, you just cut your wait time in half. See you today at 3:45 pm!”

However, the plaintiff claims that when she arrived at the U-Haul facility she was informed that her name was not on the list of those scheduled to pick up a cargo trailer that day. Nguyen says she showed a U-Haul employee her email confirmation but this “did not alter the representative’s position.” Nguyen says she even called a nearby U-Haul location to see if her trailer rental was there but it was not.

At this point, the plaintiff asked the store employee about the $50 “reservation guarantee” she was owed and was instructed to contact customer service regarding the compensation. Nguyen says she attempted numerous times to collect the $50 but U-Haul “intentionally gave her the run-around, pretending as though she was attempting to place a new order (or had already placed a new order) in order to avoid addressing the issue.”

The U-Haul class action says neither Nguyen nor potential Class Members would have tried to rent moving equipment from U-Haul if they had known the “reservation guarantee” was no guarantee at all.

The plaintiff seeks to represent a Class of all U-Haul customers nationwide who ordered moving equipment from the defendant but were not provided with the equipment at the time or location they ordered it and did not receive the $50 “reservation guarantee.”

Nguyen is represented by C.K. Lee and Anne Seelig of Lee Litigation Group PLLC.

The U-Haul “Reservation Guarantee” Class Action Lawsuit is Trang Nguyen v. U-Haul Co. of New York, et al., Case No. 1:17-cv-03947, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.