ComplaintsforMid-State Containers

• Initial Complaint

  09/19/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Buyer beware. Office container rental company in Santa Maria with a peculiar, bad business policy. Refuses to pick up their office container / shipping container from my house in Santa Maria, even though they had me prepay for pickup! Can you imagine? It's apparently a strongarm debt collection tactic they use, and makes life easier on their Accounts Receivable Team. OF COURSE it's in the fine print of the contract terms, but when is last time you read all of the fine print in terms you signed? Bad customer service, even for an industrial/construction related company. The office shipping container rental service was initially great, and Midstate Containers' price of renting an office container in Santa Maria was reasonable. And the office container was just what we needed. But now they refuse to remove the container from my house property, even though they required prepayment for the pick up? Wow bad! Having worked in customer service, and even Business-to-Business customer escalations for years myself, I was shocked. Midstate Containers Santa Maria is refusing to perform a service they were already paid to do. Basic bad customer service. The rent has stopped accumulating they say at least, but the liability of having a shipping container on a residential property where it's not wanted is huge. I do owe less than $500 for 1 month's rent of the office container rental, which will be paid ASAP. But until it's paid I'm stuck with this thing. They refuse to take it back. The liability and lack of closure makes the whole service and experience a poor experience. I will update this review once resolution occurs.

  Business response

  10/04/2023

  Mr. P******* called Midstate Containers to call his office unit off of rent and customer service rep let him know that she would go ahead and take it off of rent and he would not longer be billed for this office unit but he did have one open invoice that would need to be paid before getting the unit on schedule for pick up. Henry got upset because he wanted the office unit picked up immediately due to him and his wife going through a divorce. Standard protocol for us as a small business is making sure the accounts are completely closed once the unit is called off rent. The phone call got transferred over to our accounts manager and she again explained the process with Mr.P******* , he kept explaining how he had already paid the pick up of the unit and that should be sufficient to get the unit off his property. We are more than willing to work with our customers but Henry did not agree with our process and what he had signed for on the rental agreement. After explaining to the customer the reason why we have this process in place he threatened to post a bad review on the company, he let us know that he was a SEO search engine optimization) and that he would let everyone know that we were a horrible company. Henry posted this same complaint on Google, Yelp and 

  now on the BBB. We did let Henry know that if threats were going to be made and he was not willing to pay or work with us we would go ahead and hand it 

  over to our attorney’s office to deal with the matter in small claims. As a small local business we were not asking Mr. P****** for more than what he owed, we

  need to be able to get paid by our customers in order to be able to function as a small business and pay our employees who have families. We understand when customers have a

  bad day or going through a tough time but it's not ok to take it out on a small business or its employees. As of 9/28/23 the office unit has been picked up from 

  Mr. P****** and the open invoice has not been paid. 

  Customer response

  10/05/2023

  
  
  Complaint: 20612645
  
  I am rejecting this response because: I am not finding the no-pickup-until-fully-paid policy stated by the Midstate representative within the terms I signed. I think your policy started with a newer version of terms than my terms. Please identify which terms section number and lettered section details the term described, and upon which Midstate based their refusal to pick up their property.

  I posted reviews not in revenge, but so other consumers would know about this shady term and business practice. And to force Midstate to either stand behind their strongarm tactic publicly, or change the policy under public scrutiny.
  
  Regards,
  
  ***** P*******
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

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