ISS: Saving Self-Storage Integrity
U-Haul is solidifying customer trust in 2026 with a 1-Year Price Lock to provide tenants with cost certainty on their monthly storage rent.
As the self-storage industry grapples with mounting legal challenges and growing scrutiny over its pricing practices, U-Haul CEO Joe Shoen is focusing his energy on the customer experience and ways to sustain industry integrity.
Inside Self Storage interviewed Shoen on the topic.
From ISS:
Joe Shoen, a self-storage veteran and CEO of U-Haul International Inc., isn’t afraid to call out what he sees as deceptive pricing practices tarnishing the industry’s reputation. In recent years, our sector has come under fire, with allegations of large operators using bait-and-switch promotional tactics. Shoen has openly voiced his frustration with policies that are driven by profit before customer service. He candidly expresses concerns about increased government scrutiny and the potential for lost business integrity.
Shoen’s commitment to transparency, fairness and customer care sparks an important conversation about the future of self-storage. I interviewed him to learn more about his perspective and why U-Haul is stepping up to lead by example.
Shoen’s concerns are rooted in the practice of questionable pricing strategies by some of the self-storage industry’s largest players, where customers are lured in by very low promotional rates, only to face steep price hikes shortly after move-in. He argues that these practices are a rude awakening for renters who thought they were getting a deal and jeopardize the reputation of the entire sector.
“They get you to move in for a very low dollar amount. Once you’re moved in, you’re comfortable; but you still remember how much work it was moving in. Then they crank your rate just enough that you won’t move out,” Shoen says.
Read the rest of the blog:
About U-HAUL
Founded in 1945, U-Haul is the No. 1 choice of do-it-yourself movers with more than 24,000 rental locations across all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces. The U-Haul app makes it easy for customers to use U-Haul Truck Share 24/7 to access trucks anytime through the self-dispatch and -return options on their smartphones with our patented Live Verify technology. Our customers' patronage has enabled the U-Haul fleet to grow to approximately 203,000 trucks, 137,400 trailers and 41,700 towing devices. U-Haul, which offers rate transparency to self-storage customers through its 1-Year Price Lock, is the third largest storage operator in North America with 1,126,800 rentable storage units and 98 million square feet of self-storage space at owned and managed facilities. U-Haul is the top retailer of propane in the U.S. and the largest installer of permanent trailer hitches in the automotive aftermarket industry. Get the U-Haul app from the App Store or Google Play.
Contact:
Jeff Lockridge
E-mail: publicrelations@uhaul.com
Phone: 602-760-4941
Website: uhaul.com