Palms Self Storage

I just had quite possibly the single WORST customer service experience I have ever had at any point in my 48 years of living. That may sound like a bit of hyperbole, but trust me — it is NOT.
I rented a pick-​up truck yesterday from this location and was asked when I thought I would have the vehicle back. I said tomorrow and that I thought I would only need the vehicle for 24 hours. Nothing at the time of rental was mentioned that the site needed the vehicle back because they had another customer who needed it at 11:30 (about the time I picked up the day prior). We were using the truck to help our local school dispose of some stuff and the job took a few hours longer than expected. As a courtesy, I probably could have called. But in all my rental car and vehicle experiences (and I used to work for Penske Truck rentals so I have some experience here), never was it the customer’s responsibility to alert the Vendor if they were going to be late. And if they knew they had such a rental obligation, they should have mentioned it at the time I rented. Well the office called and I didn’t get the message until about 2hours after the truck was due back and we were on our way to return it. When I called back, I proceeded to be treated like a 4 year old child for not «thinking, as a courtesy to call the dealer and let them know I was going to be late.» The lady I spoke with, bemeaned, belittled and chastised me (THE CUSTOMER) for failing to call her and alert her that I may be late. I fully expected to be charged for being late and was prepared to pay, but I was not expecting to be treated like an idiot for not calling and causing them to «miss» another rental and hold up another customer. Then when I arrived another clerk proceeded to read me the «riot act» again for turning the vehicle in late. When I tried to tell her that it wasn’t my responsibility to call her she was dismissive, rude and condescending. She had the nerve to bring it up not once, but TWICE while checking me out. Once at the beginning and again at the end of the check-​out (20 minutes later — as I waited for her to check out other customers)
She was getting paid for the extra day’s rental, but lost a future customer in me and any of my friends and colleagues. I plan on posting this on Unilocal and FACEBOOK in hopes of ensuring the owners of this franchise lose business in the future for the deplorable customer service and total lack of business acumen in handling situations like this.

I come here all the time for truck rentals. They are always super helpful and honest and I can usually reserve trucks to rent at the last minute for a good amount of time. They really make my life easier. I highly recommend them!

Moving can be very stressful! My husband and I usually don’t write reviews but had to comment on the exceptional service by Joseph at Palms Self Storage. Joseph was able to get us the best deal available and went out of his way to make sure we were happy. We are very satisfied customers.

I wish I could give this place a worse rating. The Manager is rude and flat out lies. She did not get my reservation right and when I got there of course she blamed it on me and tried to send us downtown to rent a truck when we are in Culver City. I asked her to call her manager and when she did I asked to speak with them. She handed me the phone. After getting no help from the person on the other end of the line I handed the phone back to the site manager who proceed to tell her boss on the phone that I grabbed the phone out of her hand. I was furious after that. One of the other employees stepped in and actually took care of us and we got a truck, thank goodness. The worst part is, he warned us that since that manager was mad at me, we should take pictures of the truck in case she wanted to ding us for damage that was already there. Seriously? What kind of low life manages that place.

I am really grateful for Claire and Aziz! They were so nice. Claire helped me get insurance and it was great! I accidentally knocked off a mirror and the mirror went through the passenger side window and completely shattered the window. It was scary! I was also concerned about the cost. When I returned back to Palms Self Storage, Aziz said there would be no charges! If Claire did not help me get insurance the cost would have been about 1500. I feel like there was a Guardian Angel on my shoulder!
I am so grateful and I highly recommend Palms Self Storage U-​Haul.

For my move, I reserved a 17ft UHaul a week in advance for 8am at Palms Self Storage for Saturday, May 17 2014. When I arrived, the prior renter had not returned the truck. Initially, I was told another truck would only be available at 3pm and I had to Santa Monica to get it. Further, it was only 14ft, but I would be refunded $ 50 for the inconvenience.
After further discussion in which I had to repeatedly point out that there were other «reserved» trucks in the lot (many of which were not being picked up until much later in the day), the young woman at the front desk finally agreed to let me take one of the 14ft trucks at Palms as the renter of the 17ft truck had called back and said they would return it at 10am. She then told me I would still get the $ 50 credit since it was now 9:30, and I was still getting a smaller truck.
I was happy with this arrangement and felt it fair; however, when I returned the truck that afternoon, the same young woman then told me (with a laugh none-​the-​less) that I was no longer eligible for the $ 50 as they were able to give me a truck. When I pointed out it was a smaller size (making my move a challenge) and wrong time (delaying other plans I had that afternoon), she shrugged her shoulders and said, «You got a truck.»
I immediately asked to speak to her manager. She then gave me the area manager’s phone number named Aziz, who repeatedly did not pick up. Another person in the back told me he would not be available until Monday. I then called corporate UHaul who told me I have to call him Monday as they were powerless to do anything. How is this possible?
At this point, I will never use UHaul again. It is entirely ridiculous that the customer is inconvenienced, and then flippantly told that an agreement I had made with the only representative from this location was then cancelled. Once again, the only way to rectify this situation is to then inconvenience me, the customer.
Avoid this location and UHaul in general if you can. Horrible customer service.

I’ve stored my extra stuff here for years. Palms storage has been great. Reasonable price. Nice staff.
They’ve made moving easy. They have rental trucks, furniture wrap, boxes, tape! Why go anywhere else?

I rented a 10′ U-​Haul here for a short-​distance move.
Both folks on the Sunday staff of two were very helpful and knew exactly what they were doing. 10′ trucks don’t have ramps, but the guy there gave me great tips on how to use the appliance dolly to roll a fridge up onto the truck. The advice worked.
I had called a few days in advance to reserve the truck. The call center people are not at this site, and they were not as professional as the staff that I found here.
Helpful tip: the site is in the same lot as the Lakeshore Learning store on the SE corner of National/​Venice, even though they have an extra, gated parking lot and sign across the street on the SW corner of National/​Venice. You go pretty deep into the parking lot behind the Lakeshore Learning store to find Palms Self Storage tucked in the corner.
There was no confusion at all about the gasoline before and after my rental, and the truck they rented to me was clean, not even dusty.

Where’s the NEGATIVE 5 star option?
I rented a U-​Haul pickup truck from this location. Before going there I had completed the express checkout online but when I went to pick up the truck, there was only one guy working and he was moving slow as a turtle with broken legs. I had to wait and wait while he checked out a couple who were uncertain about what they were renting.
After about 20 min, the guy finally gave me the keys to the dusty truck. He wrote that it had ¾ of a tank of gas on the paperwork but when I started the truck it actually was closer to ½ a tank. I notified him of the discrepancy before I drove off and he stated it was «close to ¾». After some ridiculous and unnecessary banter back and forth I had him correct the paperwork to reflect the accurate amount of fuel.
Upon returning the truck, I made a note that I had driven a total of 10 miles. When checking out he told me that they were going to charge me without showing me a billing statement. I explained to them that they first need to explain to me what the charges are as I don’t pay for phantom charges. It was then that I discovered that he had charged me for 11 miles instead of 10, when I questioned this mileage discrepancy, he said that I had driven a little over 10 miles and they round up to the nearest mile. The same way they round up the gas tank of the truck.
He preceded to tell me that they were not going to charge me since I did not go to the gas station and put gas in the truck. I notified him that there was no need to go to a gas station as I had only driven a total of 10 miles and the gas needle had not moved. He became even more belligerent and argumentative further demonstrating his extreme lack of professional integrity and customer service.
In summary: STAY AWAY FROM THIS PLACE! THEY SCAM CUSTOMERS! IF YOU CHOOSE TO GAMBLE AND CONDUCT BUSINESS HERE, PAY ATTENTION TO THE GAS METER, MILEAGE (TAKE A PIC), AND PAPERWORK PRIOR TO DEPARTURE AND WHEN RETURNING. THE OTHER U-​HAUL LOCATION ON NATIONAL OR HOME DEPOT HAVE LARGE VEHICLES FOR THE SAME COST WITH BETTER SERVICE.

Oh hell no. We were returning a truck to this place and the guy working alternatively ignored us and glared at us. All we wanted was to return the truck, but it took over 45 minutes to get someone to help us. Please don’t go here. It’s the worst.

Everything seemed like it was going so well… I called in and made a reservation for a 4×8 covered trailer, though it took 4 different phone calls because they always had computer issues that prevented them from finalizing the reservation. I then called in the day before pickup day to confirm they had the 4×8 trailer on site. They said they did. Perfect.
Day of, I arrive, pay, they hook up the trailer while I check out, and I drive off the lot. I look in the rear view mirror and see 5×8 written on the trailer. Wtf? My small car can’t pull that size trailer. So I call them back immediately from the side of the road 2 blocks away, and the lady tells me she doesn’t have the 4×8 trailer anymore (they rented it yesterday, nice!) so she substituted a 5×8, and if I wanted to complain I could call the 800 number. Then she literally hung up on me before I had a chance to write it down.
I googled the national uhaul reservation line, called in, asked where the closest 4×8 trailer was, and they told me Crenshaw which is only 4 miles away. So I drove back to Palms, unhooked the trailer, gave the lady the finger, and walked out of there forever. The Crenshaw uhaul had the size I reserved and they were super helpful. Go there for your uhaul rentals instead!

The guy was clear and friendly, easy pick up, easy drop off, big car park… Only issue is if you’re cramming stuff into a truck and not using the blankets they get in the way. Also be sure to sweep the truck at the end.

The main reason for the five stars? There’s an actual parking lot and it’s pretty big!!! I felt totally safe leaving my car there for 2 – 3 hours. The last two u-​haul locations I went to, it was either street parking only or a tiny parking lot where you had to fight for a space. But I had no problems with parking here. And the customer service was great! Clara was the one who assisted me. She was super duper nice! The whole process was smooth sailing. I would not hesitate to rent a van from them again.

There are 2 loading docks so multiple can load at the same time. They have 3 dollies so one person can unload the truck while the other loads the storage unit.
The storage units have poles for hanging clothes in them.
It’s hard to maneuver around the place with the dollies because of the sharp turns.
They offer free really great coffee and free water.

I use the storage units here. They are old and a bit creepy. I like to wait for my friends to walk by so I can jump out and scare them. There are not enough lights to see what is inside your unit, but the prices are way better than other places.
When I call sometimes to check on hours they always seem upset to have to answer the phone, but they’re probably just scared because it’s all haunted hallways in there.

I was in and out in 10 – 13 minutes coming and going. The staff was cool and everything went smooth. Clara and Joe (I think that’s their names) were on top of it.
Good job guys!

I’m on the fence about these guys…
I rented a 14′ U-​haul from them and while trying to put gas back in it, the gauge stuck so every time I checked during re-​fueling to see where we were at, it hadn’t moved. After $ 50 in gas I figured something was wrong and stopped re-​fueling. By the time I pulled into their parking lot, the gauge had finally jumped to ¼ tank OVER what I needed for turn-​in which equated to about $ 25 extra in gas. When I explained this to them they offered ZERO consolation. Even though I explained that the over-​fueling was a result of mechanical malfunction of THEIR equipment and due to no fault of my own… they didn’t care. If they had at least offered some small consolation, or even shown a shred of concern, I would have been happy.
However, to their credit, two days prior, they allowed me to turn in the truck just 30 minutes after I originally rented it because my storage space was closed on New Years Eve (even though their sign said they would be open — NYE is not a holiday folks). So after that little discovery, Palms Self Storage allowed me to turn in the truck without charging me for the day and enabled me to pick it a few days later when my storage space was finally open again.
So for that I say thanks. But the gas gauge issue left me a little hacked, to say the least.

Horrific Customer service. 11am and no one even answers the phone to get an estimate? Does anyone work here? Ridiculous.

U-​Haul? U Suck!
U-​Haul is great at *taking* a reservation, they just have to learn to *hold* a reservation. Ok, end of Seinfeld reference.
I dropped my husband off at this location to pick up the 17′ truck we reserved online. Although there were a bunch of trucks in the lot across the street, they refused to give him one, saying that nothing was available. He was stranded there, forced to take a pick-​up truck. A pick-​up truck for a three bedroom move?! Errrr… no. The battleaxe working behind the counter was a complete bitch, to boot. She even went back into the computer and had changed our reservation afterwards, saying we had never reserved it. Of course, U-​Haul had no ‘history’ of this, but our bank account showed otherwise — we were pre-​authorized for a 17′ truck, so they had already taken the $ 100 out of our bank account. The cost for a pick-​up? Something like $ 20/​day.
Needless to say, this screwed over our move. We had to scramble to find another company, ended up with Budget truck rental in East LA somewhere. Anyways, the Budget guy explained it to me: they can make a ton of money at the end of the month, renting one-​way out of town. So little local moves like ours, they will take the reservation, then not honor it.
If you read the fine print, it says right there, a reservation isn’t a reservation. It’s just a «request.» A complete misnomer.
I had to call the regional number and the store manager several times, because he would never pick up the phone when I called him. Finally, they patched me through. His lame excuse: «You had an out-​of-​town area code, so I didn’t pick up.» Uh, do you think someone that’s MOVING might have a DIFFERENT AREA CODE?! He was completely lame, and was completely unsympathetic to the situation they caused. Nothing was resolved. They totally ruined our move and took our money.
Never. Again.
U-​Haul can go to hell.

This place is, by far, the worst place I’ve ever dealt with.
There are many words I can think of to describe «Claire» at this location. But, let’s just say that she has an anger problem.
I had reserved a 17′ truck for 24 hours, U-Haul’s records showed a reservation for a pickup truck, for 17 hours. She got aggravated that I was questioning why this happened, and was repeatedly interrupting me saying that all the trucks were unavailable (mind you, I drove by trucks in their lot at night, and again in the morning. I was doing a local move and I am told U-​Haul likes to hold out for the money-​making long distance moves.)
I asked what kind of «written material» that I was signing as to have received (as stated on the contract), and she said that I was saying that I «knew how to drive a car». So, I read it back to her, and she got pissed and threw a pen at me. I mean, really. She really did that.
Overall, the whole experience was laden with her aggravation, anger, combative nature, and verbal abuse.
Sadly, she was trying to pin it all on me. I’m about as mellow as they come. I was obviously upset about the reservation getting messed up, but I had no grudge with her walking in there Either way, I needed to move a 3 bedroom house, and I needed a truck. But, from the first sentence she uttered at me …“WHO TOLD YOU THAT??!”… she pushed the dynamic of our encounter further into the red zone with each of her ill chosen words. She kept trying to back-​peddle and tell me that I was being rude, when I was simply trying to stand up for my rights as a customer and deal with this lady that seems to need anger management classes.
So, yeah. Claire is to be avoided at all costs.
Oh, and they charged me $ 38 to fill up ¹⁄₈^th of a tank. I stopped at the local gas station to fill up, and the pumps were not working, I waited and waited, but I needed to get the stupid truck back by 10am, so I opted to bring it back and pay a fuel charge. Yeah, the fine print says you can be charged $ 30 for fuel service, plus the unreasonable fuel cost.
AND, I rented a furniture dolly, an appliance dolly and furniture pads, and didn’t receive any of them. But, they charged me for the dollies.
So, $ 95 to have a pickup truck for an evening, and to be verbally assaulted by a haggard old woman having a bad day.
U Haul is dead to me.