Timeline Part XI: I will survive [Mirna]

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Timeline Part X: Maggie Mirna

08/20/2014, Wed

Email received @ 14:42 PST

From: mmgutierrez@repwest.com

To: jeffXXXXX@XXXXXXX.com

Cc: Kakani xxxxx

Subject: Status of claim 00######-2014

Jeff,

Your claim is being reviewed by Supervisor & Manager.  I just followed up with them and I will be able to contact you tomorrow with claim resolution.

Thank You,

Mirna M. Gutierrez

Claims Adjuster II

800-528-7134 Ext. 664195

E-Mail:  MMGutierrez@repwest.com

Fax: 602-745-6439

End of email.

You heard it.  We wait for tomorrow.

08/21/2014, Thu

Email sent @ 15:49 PST

From: jeffXXXXX@XXXXXXX.com

To: mmgutierrez@repwest.com

Cc: Kakani xxxxx

Subject: RE: Status of claim 00######-2014

Hi Mirna,

We are expecting to hear from you today regarding our claim.

Jeff

End of email.

Timeline Part IX: I'd rather go blind [than deal with Mirna]

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Timeline Part VIII: [Mirna and us] are never getting back together

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Timeline Part VII: Cry me a Mirna

Email sent @ 14:38 PST

From: jeffxxxxx@xxxxxxx.com

To: mmgutierrez@repwest.com

Cc: Kakani xxxxx

Subject: RE: Status of claim 00######-2014

Hi Mirna,

Just sending a reminder for you to let us know if you came across any news regarding our claim.

Jeff

End of email.

No reply from Mirna.  Looks like she'll be getting a call first thing in the morning.

08/06/2014, Wed

Call made to Mirna Gutierrez @ 08:47 PST

Summary of call:  Mirna says she went through all of her email this morning and there were no new messages from Enservio.  I asked the last time she heard from them, and she said August 1.  Since then she's been playing phone tag with the claims adjuster at Enservio.  She said she would attempt to make contact today.  She did note that she (too) was keeping a daily diary related to our claim.  Mirna also verified receipt of the updated police report.

End of call.

08/07/2014, Thu

Email sent @ 14:57 PST

From: jeffxxxxx@xxxxxxx.com

To: mmgutierrez@repwest.com

Cc: Kakani xxxxx

Subject: RE: Status of claim 00######-2014

Mirna,

It has now been one week from the time you initially informed us that you would be getting feedback from Enservio.  I understand that you are waiting on the adjuster there so that you may continue to do your job.  However, I expect that since you said our claim has been moved to "high urgency," that you have been adamant in maintaining constant pressure on the claims adjuster at Enservio, as well as elucidating that sense of urgency to them, to provide you with the necessary information as quickly as possible.  I know first hand how maintaining that type of contact and communication can get the ball rolling and make things happen, even when they've been pushed aside for almost a month.

Jeff

Timeline Post VI: Nothing compares to Mirna

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Timeline Part V: Earth to Mirna

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Timeline Part IV: Mirna, are you there?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Timeline Part III: For the love of Mirna

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Timeline Part II: U-Haul, RepWest, and Watsonville PD

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Timeline Part I: Theft of belongings

The following timeline documents our interactions and dealings with U-Haul. 

=====================

05/28/2014, Wed

U-Haul U-Box pod loaded at U-Haul Moving & Storage of Hyannis (Hyannis, MA).  Just before closing and locking the door, I took the series of six photos below.  Projected delivery date is June 11, with access to unload on June 12.  Informed that I would be notified when the pod was five days away from actual delivery.

06/09/2014, Mon

U-Box delivered to Watsonville Self Storage (Watsonville, CA), though we were never informed of delivery and did not know until June 12.

06/10/2014, Tue

Fraud alerts reported on four separate credit accounts for activity in Stockton, CA.  These credit cards were packed in a duffel bag with lots of shoes.  That duffel bag was inside the U-Box pod.

06/11/2014, Wed

Called U-Haul customer service to locate U-Box, was told to call facility of origin.  Upon ending that call, immediately called U-Haul Moving & Storage of Hyannis, and was forwarded to a U-Haul call center because it was after hours.  Agent could not tell me the status of the U-Box and was told to call destination facility.  At this point it was after hours there as well, so I went online to see if any of the information there had changed.  Nothing new, as in it did not show that the U-Box had been delivered.

06/12/2014, Thu

Called Watsonville Self Storage and spoke with Ned, who identified himself as the warehouse manager.  Ned informed me that the U-Box had been delivered on June 9.  He also mentioned that he did not notice anything strange or suspicious about any of the U-Box pods that had been offloaded that day.  Ned told me he would go check the warehouse and call me back in an hour.

This was taking place as I was driving across the country, so I immediately called Kakani.  She was able to rent a cargo van and drive from Monterey to Watsonville before I heard back from Ned.  Upon arrival, Ned informed her that the warehouse needed a 24-hour notice of intent to come unload.  Kakani apologized to Ned, told him that she rented a vehicle for the sole purpose of unloading our belongings from the U-Box, and Ned acquiesced.  She was told that it would take approximately one hour to move the pod so that it was accessible.  Kakani returned to the facility one hour later, walked into the storage facility's office, and asked that Ned show her which U-Box was ours.  Ned walked outside with Kakani and showed her which pod had our belongings, and stood with her as she opened it.  The first thing Ned noticed was that the color of the plastic wrap around the pod was not green; according to Ned, that is U-Haul policy to wrap with green plastic wrap.  The plastic wrap was instead clear, and Ned suggested to Kakani that she take a picture of the plastic wrap (shown below).  After undoing the plastic wrap, Kakani accessed the pod by unlocking the U-Haul lock (that Jeff purchased in Hyannis, MA).  Upon removal, a metal security tab used by U-Haul was in place, and from initial inspection it looked like it needed to be removed using wire cutters in order to open the door.  However, the way in which the security tab was placed allowed it to be pulled through the metal latch with ease.  Ned then said to Kakani that the metal security tab couldn't function properly because of the way it was installed.  Kakani (with Ned standing over her left shoulder) then opened the door of the U-Box and took pictures of the contents inside.  It was clear from initial inspection that two boxes and several pieces of luggage were missing, including the bag that held Kakani's credit cards.  Ned then called the U-Haul office and they suggested to file a police report.  Ned called the Watsonville Police Department on Kakani's behalf and requested to have an officer come to the storage facility to get a statement and file a police report.  Kakani waited several hours for the police officer to arrive.  Upon arrival, Kakani showed the U-Box and its disheveled contents to Officer Irma Haas (Kakani had not moved any of the items in the pod), Office Haas took a statement from Kakani and Ned, and then left.  After the police report was filed, Kakani then proceeded to unload the U-Box and all of its contents.  Before leaving the storage facility, she collected all the paperwork that was affixed to the outer surface of the U-Box (four forms in all); these bill of lading forms were checklists for pod transport and security, and none of them had been filled out.  Kakani then drove the rental van to our new residence.

Clear plastic wrap (instead of green) was used as an outer barrier for U-Box.

The interior of our U-Box when Kakani arrived to unload our belongings in Watsonville, CA (sans many items). 

The locking mechanism on our all-plywood U-Box. The red tag is U-Haul's version of a safety tag. Not shown: padlock that was used to secure the latch closed. Obvious tampering is evident on the left side of the latch.

If we are to take Ned at his word, and assume that when the U-Box was offloaded and delivered on June 9 there was nothing outstanding to note (so presumably it was still wrapped in green plastic wrap), and connect that to the fraud alerts in Stockton (two hours from Watsonville by car) on June 10, and subsequent discovery of the U-Box wrapped in clear plastic wrap on June 12, I think it's safe to speculate that the burglary occurred within the Watsonville facility and not en route.

Thanks for reading,

J

Statement of facts

The following was text submitted as "Statement.pdf" detailing our claim and interaction with U-Haul and their insurance cohorts, Repwest.  Apart from some minor editing (noted in italics), this file was submitted in an email with supporting documents on June 29, 2014.  This statement is posted first to introduce our story.  All interactions (referred to in this statement, and up to the time of posting) are detailed in a timeline that will be included in subsequent posts. Note: our address have been removed from the statement.

=============================

Claim no. 00######-2014

Statement of facts

My wife and I are in the process of moving from Massachusetts to California.  We decided to use U-Haul's U-Box pod to ship the majority of our belongings from east to west, both because of familiarity with the U-Haul brand, as well as the cost compared to other pod-type shipping providers.  The low cost (in our case, U-Haul was about $1000 or one-third cheaper than other companies), apparently turned out to be a "pay-for-what-you-get" type of scenario.  The U-Box was in U-Haul's possession the entire time.  I cannot emphasize that statement enough.  That is, we elected to load and unload our U-Box at certified U-Haul facilities, instead of having them drop it off at our residence on either end of the move.  On Wednesday, May 28, 2014, I loaded the U-Box at U-Haul Moving & Storage of Hyannis, 594 Bearses Way, Hyannis, MA 02601.  I took several pictures after I had finished loading the pod, closed the door, latched it, put a newly purchased (from U-Haul) lock on it, and fastened all the velcro of the vinyl weather covering.  I returned to the office at the U-Haul facility and was told that all was set and scheduled, that I would receive a call from U-Haul informing me when the pod was five days away from actual delivery.  Then I drove off, leaving the packed and locked pod sitting with U-Haul.

The U-Box was projected to be delivered on June 11, 2014 to Watsonville Self Storage (a U-Haul neighborhood dealer), 127 Lee Rd. Unit H, Watsonville, CA 95076.  Between those endpoints, the U-Box was (I assume) picked up by a U-Haul truck (I received a notification on June 2, 2014, time-stamped 03:58, that the U-Box had dispatched), and driven across the country with other U-Box pods.  The projected delivery date means I should have been notified sometime around June 6 that the U-Box was en route and on time.  I never received a call.

On June 10, 2014, my wife received fraud alerts on four separate dormant accounts that had never been closed.  All of the alerts were issued based on attempted charges made in Stockton, CA, a city approximately two hours from Watsonville by car.  This immediately led us to believe that the U-Box containing our belongings had been burglarized because she had packed those cards in a bag that was put in the U-Box.  On June 11, the projected delivery date, I called U-Haul customer service to find out where the U-Box was (remember, at this point, we had not been notified of delivery or any other update other than the invoice dated June 2 that indicated the U-Box has dispatched), and I was informed that I should call the facility of origin.  I immediately called U-Haul Moving & Storage of Hyannis, which at the time, happened to be after hours.  Presumably, the call was forwarded to a central U-Haul office and I was connected to another U-Haul agent who had no information to give regarding the status of the U-Box and told me to call the destination facility.  That facility had also closed for the day, so after hanging up, I went to uhaul.com and entered our contract number, only to see the same static timeline of events (i.e., projected delivery on June 11, access on June 12) presented to us when the reservation was first made.

I called Watsonville Self Storage on June 12 and spoke with Ned, the facility manager.  I explained to him that I was trying to determine where the U-Box was (Had it been delivered? or was it still en route?), and that we had reason to believe it had been broken into.  Ned pulled up the information available to him via our contract number and told me the U-Box had been delivered to that facility on June 9.  Again, we were never informed that it was indeed delivered three days prior, nor had I ever received a call letting me know it was five days away from being delivered.  Ned also mentioned that he did not remember seeing anything outstanding or strange with any of the U-Box pods in the warehouse.  He told me he would go check to make sure the security tape was intact (at this point, I did not know what measures U-Haul took to secure the pod after I had closed, locked, and fastened the weather-proof covering) and that he would call back in an hour.  I never received a call back.

All of this is taking place as I am driving across the country.  My wife, however, was already out in California, so I quickly relayed the information to her that the U-Box was sitting at Watsonville Self Storage, and that I had talked with Ned on the phone.  She rented a cargo van and drove out to the Watsonville facility.  Upon arriving, she met with Ned and together they walked to the warehouse to locate our U-Box.  Our pod was there, wrapped in clear plastic wrap, sitting amongst other pods all wrapped in green.  Ned mentioned that it was odd that the U-Box was wrapped in clear, as U-Haul only uses green.  My wife removed our lock from the latch, took a photo of the latching mechanism (rife with obvious tampering) with U-Haul's own "security" pin still in place, and opened the door.  She then took a photo of the state of our belongings, which had obviously been pillaged.  The Watsonville police were called, a report filed, and the claim process started.

Among the red flags in this situation (fraud alerts in nearby Stockton, failure to notify of delivery, clear wrap versus green, obvious tampering of the latching mechanism), we speculate this to be an inside job either at the Watsonville location or a nearby distribution center that the U-Box may have passed through.  U-Haul's own failure in software and customer service means we have no idea what route the U-Box took from Hyannis to Watsonville, we were unable to track it, and apparently U-Haul representatives with whom I spoke to were unable to track it as well.  That seems like a very basic service to provide, not only for your customer's peace of mind and scheduling, but also for your own measures of security and so forth.

On Monday, June 16, 2014, at 16:43 PST, I received a [call] (edited on 07/24/2014; previously "called") from Repwest agent Mirna Gutierrez regarding our claim.  I was driving when she called, and returned her call at 17:10 PST on the same day, and left a voicemail at her extension.  I waited for a return call Tuesday and never received one.  On Wednesday, June 18, 2014, at 13:45 PST, I called and left another voicemail.  I awaited a return call the rest of that day, Thursday, and Friday, and never heard back.  On Sunday, June 22, 2014, at 09:30 PST, I called again and left another message, hoping to hear back first thing Monday morning.  On Monday I connected (edited on 07/24/2014 to clarify "connected," meaning I made the call) with a Repwest operator at 13:13 PST to express our frustration and request a new agent.  I was transferred to whom I was told was the supervisor for Mirna Gutierrez, whose first name was Chris and surname was not exactly clear to me (something sounding like "Evenson").  I left a voicemail and asked that he call me back, which he never did.  Instead, I finally received a call from Mirna a short time later at 14:43 PST on the same day.  If customer service were of any real value to U-Haul and Repwest, they should be trying to contact us over and over.  If U-Haul cared in any way to accept responsibility for a U-Box that was burglarized while in their possession one-hundred percent of the time, we should be inundated with calls trying to right their wrong, trying to settle our claim.

We will be seeking full reimbursement for the expense of the U-Box and shipping fees, as well as for the itemized replacement value of the things that were stolen from us.  We have been documenting each and every interaction with U-Haul and Repwest from the beginning of our move.  If legal action is required to settle this claim, we are fully prepared to take that route.  We are also prepared to take our story to social media, encouraging everyone we know and the power of social media to spread our story in hopes that U-Haul's lack of care, unwillingness to accept responsibility, terrible customer service, and shady practices do not go unnoticed.  We had a choice in which company we trusted to move our things, and we chose poorly.  We hope others choose not to deal with U-Haul in the future.

Jeffrey XXXXX

06/29/2014

Kakani XXXXX

06/29/2014

=============================

Thanks for reading,

J

Why are we sharing our U-Haul story?

Hello world!

If you happen to stumble upon this page, you will find information about our disappointing experience with U-Haul and their U-Box program, as well as frustrating non-service from RepWest, U-Haul's insurance provider. After nearly three months of one-sided contributions (from us) and requests for further information (again from us), we have decided to turn to social networking in hopes that a resolution can be reached and others can learn from our experiences. Please share this page and our posts with your friends and family.

About us: We are a married couple who went to nerd school together in Pasadena, CA, and in 2010 we headed to New England to live out our adult-nerd lives as postdoctoral students. There we added a beautiful dog to our family, and the three of us were enjoying life on the east coast. After spending nearly four years in a tiny village town called Woods Hole, we both had job opportunities (in marine science and teaching physics in high school) in Monterey, CA. We entrusted U-Haul and a U-Box to move most of our belongings from New England to Monterey. Unfortunately, we found that our trust was misplaced, and several thousands of dollars of belongings were stolen from our U-Box (which was in the possession of U-Haul the entire time). After nearly three months of emails, phone calls, inaction, and going nowhere, we have decided to post our story online to inform others. Here, we describe our experiences in painful detail.

Thank you for visiting and please share our story.

2K + J