PODS

I could write a catalog about the variety of problems we encountered in storing our household possessions in two PODS for 11 months while building a new house. For starters, communication with PODS was very cumbersome and time-​consuming. After setting up the initial account, I never was able to reach any PODS personnel locally in their San Diego operation; all calls went directly to their headquarters staff in Florida. When the time came to arrange delivery of the PODS to our new address, PODS said they couldn’t park our two PODS on the street in front of our house, even though we had seen a PODS container parked on the street in front of a house here in our same neighborhood just a few months prior. PODS said we’d have to contact the City to get permission, and that they had no idea which city office to contact. Two days of calling around to City offices was fruitless, so we had to hire a moving van and two guys at $ 360 to go to the PODS storage facility and get our stuff out. Every item inside that was not sealed within its own container was covered with a layer of grit. To top if off, after we closed our PODS account, they charged us one more month’s storage fee. They’ve promised to reverse that charge; of course, that necessitated several time-​consuming attempts to reach them via Live Chat and two phone calls.

Had to store our POD for a year while waiting to select a permanent residence in our new location. Arranged to empty POD at their Mission Gorge Road depot and transfer contents into a Ryder truck for transport to new home in Arizona thus saving $ 1,000 + taking care of this myself. Personnel at the depot were less than helpful and cranky. Months later my account was debited by PODS charging me for a month’s storage after it was emptied. Calling their headquarters, I was transferred several times enduring automated prompts and less than helpful «service» representatives.. . 33 minutes most of which was spent on hold. Finally was advised that they would have to call San Diego depot to confirm that the POD was indeed emptied months ago. I am writing this 2 hours now after receiving promise from Representative to call me back. Still waiting!

Like many others in San Diego, I was not notified that delivery could not be made until the MORNING OF the delivery. Mind you, I had to be out of the country in 2 days.
I had made several calls in the weeks prior to my POD delivery to confirm that I didn’t need a permit or anything and was assured that there would be no problems. Even after the local POD called me to inform me of this, the call center continued to try to assure me the local POD should be able to deliver.
It’s not clear to me why this local company doesn’t review the addresses at least a couple days in advance to make sure they know which ones can’t be delivered. That would at least give customers a few days’ notice rather than zero notice that they now need to rent a moving truck themselves and get everything done themselves. I wasn’t offered any kind of credit or anything. Just «sorry, you’ll need to rent a truck and bring your stuff to the pod». I had a very short time frame to get all my things loaded and ready to go before I left the country and getting this last minute notice totally messed things up.

This is a no service company. They operate out of a call center and the reps know nothing about the business. Online they are worse. I won’t ever use or recommend this company again.

I had scheduled a Pod months in advance and was happy with the customer service provided at the time of reservation. Appx a month before, my move fell through. I cancelled 8 days prior (you only need 24 hour advance notice for a full refund). Suddenly my account is overdrafted and I find a $ 515 charge from Pods a few days before my CANCELLED delivery. I sat on hold for an hour and 20 minutes because they were experiencing high call volume (yes I’m crazy for waiting an hour 20, but I was so furious each 10 min increment, I refused to lose my place in line). Long story short, I have spoken with them at least 5 times over the past 3 WEEKS. After 2 weeks, I was refunded only $ 302 of the $ 515. Finally getting through to them ANOTHER WEEK LATER, they said there was some sort of error and they withheld the late cancellation fee. So again I’m told a message will be sent to billing and it will be addressed. Well, here I am still short $ 213. IMO, $ 515 is a lot to withhold from somebody when nothing was owed to begin with. I’ve had to break into my savings to cover bills thanks to their inability to adequately and timely refund me. How hard can it be?! I will say every person I’ve contacted has been friendly and ‘sincere,’ but that doesn’t fix my bills due. They claim the issue was a software ‘upgrade.’ At this point, I could careless what the excuse is. REFUND MY MONEY!!! (And some for the huge inconvenience, HOURS spent on the phone with them, and overall frustration of having to deal with this!)

This is THE WORST company I have ever dealt with. I was hoping for a smooth experience and got the complete opposite. I called PODS on Mon. Dec. 14^th, 2015 to schedule the delivery of the POD to my home for Sat. Jan. 9^th, 2016. The young man I spoke with stated that I could schedule the pick-​up whenever I knew the date and I said that I already knew I needed it to be picked up on Thursday, Jan. 14^th, 2016. He assured me everything was set, and that I could log-​on to my account online and check everything. I then received an email stating there would be a system shut-​down from THURS. Jan. 7^th, 2016 — MON. Jan. 11^th, 2016. Apparently this system switch-​over is what they claim created the following disasters. FIRST, I had specified that I needed my container picked up from my home on THURSDAY Jan. 14^th because I had already booked my flights to leave on FRIDAY Jan. 15^th. I realized that every time I logged in to my account, it didn’t state the pick-​up date. So I called and waited FOREVER (literally almost 45minutes) for someone to pick up and tell me that I never scheduled the pick-​up date. I WAS FURIOUS. I told them they needed to go back and check the original phone call because I KNOW I gave the date. They had a «resolution» team member call me and tell me that I didn’t specify the date on the call, and when I asked to hear the call myself, they said NO. How convenient for them. At this point I was at their mercy and had no choice but to change my flights and wait for them to pick-​up the container, which they made happen, the afternoon of the 15^th. The least they could have done was pay for my flight change but all I was offered was a $ 75 credit.
I thought it would be over, but I was sorely mistaken. IT ONLY GOT WORSE. I arrived at my destination (San Diego) and called them as soon as I found my permanent residence to ask for the first available delivery date. I was given the date of FRI. Jan. 29^th. I also stated that my complex did not allow overnight storage of the container so I needed a same-​day pick-​up. They notified me of the $ 75 charge and said it would be dropped off early morning between 8−10am and had to be picked up by 1pm, which only gave me a couple of hours to unload. At this point I just wanted to be rid of this horrible company. They told me I would receive an email AND a phone call to confirm the delivery. I never got either of those. Friday Jan. 29^th came around and I stayed home from work in order to unload the POD. It was 9am and I hadn’t heard from anyone, so I called and waited FOREVER again to finally get someone on the phone only to tell me that they couldn’t get a hold of the driver that was supposed to be bringing my things and all they could do was call me as soon as they heard back from someone. I never heard from anyone that day and needless to say, my POD did not arrive. Again, I WAS FURIOUS. I called the next day (Saturday, Jan. 30^th) asking why no one contacted me back to let me know what was going on, and I was told: «because we never heard back from the driver or the warehouse either». SO, I asked when exactly I could RE-​SCHEDULE my delivery and I was given the date of MON. Feb. 1^st. Once again, I reminded them I needed same-​day delivery and pick-​up and was assured that’s what I would get. Monday morning came and again, NO email, NO phone call. This is the SECOND day my wife and I had to take off of work, and still PODS is nowhere to be found. I got on the phone AGAIN waited for almost an hour AGAIN to speak to someone who said that not only were they unable to reach the driver or the warehouse AGAIN, but my POD was not scheduled for same-​day delivery and pick-​up as I had requested SEVERAL TIMES. I asked to speak to someone with a little more authority because by now I was beyond upset and disappointed. I paid SO much money and the service I had been receiving was definitely NOT worth it. I was put on hold for another 15 minutes, apart from the original 45 that I waited before, to speak with another «resolution» team member who said all they could do was try to contact the driver or warehouse again and call me back when they heard from them. PODS idea of a «resolution» is a joke. I insisted they give me the number but they said they couldn’t. I then insisted they continue calling them until they got a response and that I would wait all day on the phone with them if I had to. Of course that’s when they tell me that FINALLY my POD will be delivered TUES. Feb. 2^nd and again assured me it would be picked up that same afternoon. SO AGAIN my wife and I had to take off ANOTHER day from work (a total of 3 days now). I finally received a call from the driver that «morning» who did not arrive until 11am (when I was told it would be between 8am-​10am. Were I not limited to a certain amount of characters in this entry I would go on about the rest of the tremendous INCONVENIENCE this company caused me and my family. All in all, I would NEVER RECOMMEND PODS TO ANYONE. WORST.COMPANY.EVER.

Stay FAR away from this company — they are completely fraudulent! When signing up for delivery we specified our San Diego location, then they gave us the option to select an alley delivery location. As our house backs to an alley, this works best for us. However, they arrived and indicated the City of San Diego does not allow a pod to be placed in an alley. The obvious question — if not, then WHY WAS THAT OPTION AVAILABLE ON THE WEBSITE ONCE YOU KNEW I WAS IN SAN DIEGO?!? Had they informed me properly I could have reserved a parking spot on the street, but at that point it was too late. If you don’t want to be left completely hanging with a deadline to move out of your house, DON’T ever use this pathetic excuse for a moving company!

I am sorry to say that we cannot recommend PODS. We will never use them again for any move. We were still looking for a home in the San Diego area when we started working here. Because we were staying with family temporarily, we thought moving with PODS would be a good way to move and store our belongings.
What PODS does not tell you is that they cannot place their units on the street in some zip codes. It was only when my husband phoned to arrange for delivery that this information was suddenly provided. My husband phoned the City of San Diego and received approval for 24 hour parking of our 3 PODS in front of our new home. He rang back to PODS with this information and the delivery was scheduled and confirmed. The morning our PODS were to be delivered we received three automated messages confirming delivery. Shortly after that we received a call from the driver stating that he could not deliver our PODS. As one of the other reviews notes, we were also told that this was our problem. We were instructed to hire a truck, go to the PODS storage location off load our belongings and get them to our home ourselves.
I believe it was because I spent the remainder of the day on the phone with their customer service center in Florida that we received any assistance at all. Their first offer was to provide us with $ 100 towards the fee for renting a truck. I refused and insisted that they arrange and pay for movers to offload our PODS and deliver our belongings to our home. I believe this accommodation was only granted because I phoned the customer service center in Florida every hour throughout the day. Finally, late in the afternoon we were told that our belongings would be delivered by a moving company in 2 days. Obviously this was a huge inconvenience to us as well as a financial burden as both my husband and myself as well as 2 friends had taken time off from work to complete our move.
We slept on the floor in our empty house and our belongings were finally delivered 2 days later. Since that time I’ve phoned PODS customer service twice requesting an incident number and email address so that I can document my request for a refund. I’ve received voice messages in return simply stating that they are returning my call but without the information I’ve requested. I’m still hoping for an appropriate response.

When delivering the POD, the driver scraped the side of my brand new, street-​parked, Lexus. That was two weeks ago. They have not contacted me to be it repaired. They do not respond to phone calls.
Now they delivered the POD to my daughter (San Diego to Spokane) and they broke down the fence of the rented property.
Buyer Beware. We spent $ 2500 on this POD move and so far, this is the service.