ComplaintsforLinden Self Storage

• Initial Complaint

  11/06/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I have reached out to this business to try and handles this amicably, but the manager literally cussed me and told me to shut up. This business is the worst I wouldn't recommend them to a homeless man needing to stay somewhere. Not only did she tell me to shut my ** * **** mouth she hung upon me and told me I was stupid for not understanding what she was trying to say. So, I own a moving company and realized that I had been being charge for storages I was no longer utilizing in the amount of roughly 5k. I spoke with management and not once did we receive information about closing out the storage. I told her that if we did, we would have informed the facility (All this after receiving a call from one of the associates working at Linden self-storage back in July and we informed him we were moving out he never said that there was anything to do and thanks for letting him know) .But after telling the manager she says I don't care you are not getting any money back and basically tell me that she is the manager, and she doesn't care what anyone has to say she will run the business the way she wants. Normally I'm not appalled enough to write a review, but this company needs to be shut down and closed if that the way they do business. All I want is my money returned to me for storages I haven't used in over 5 months I don't even want an apology. Thanks for anything you can do BBB and LINDEN SELF STORAGE you all Are a F rated business period because your employees are messing up your reputation.

  Business response

  11/10/2023

  Good Morning BBB,  We are writing in response to a complaint we received from a former tenant. This tenant rented with us for a while and never signed the contract acknowledging and enforcing their consumer rights despite 28 attempts over the time they rented from us (as recent as 10/16/2023) to have this settled. They would either say that they would and never do it ignore us completely. At the end of it all, it became clear that the contact information we had belonged to an employee and not someone in the company that mattered. This was never explained to us at sign up nor was it explained that they were a business, or we would have required the company name on the contract and not some random employee. At one point during their time with us, they left trash all around the units they were renting, which required us to contact them to take of it, which they did not do. At no point did they tell us that they were moving out, which is required by the contract to be submitted in writing. They might know this if they actually read and signed it. Since they never told us we had no way of knowing, as contrary to popular opinion, we cannot go through every unit every day to see if people are still in their unit because that's illegal. In NYS, unit rentals follow the same or similar laws to apartment rentals. A  landlord cannot (generally) just enter your apartment without permission (or signed waiving of the required permission).  We received a call from the tenant on 11/6 asking why they were being charged when they moved out. Mind you, this is around the sum of $4500 over the course of 5 months, how this wasn't caught sooner is beyond us. We asked if they completed a move out form or even contacted us to let us know and they replied that they did not know that they needed to do that. I explained that it was noted in the lease that they refused to sign and they stated that since they did not sign the lease, they did not need to follow these rules, a common mistake made by people with ill-intent. We informed them that that is not true and in fact without the lease, they have fewer protections than with the lease. They continued to argue this point and I told them that I had just emailed them a move out form to the email they had provided us at move in and that they needed to complete the form and send it back. I then hung up on them as they were yelling at this point. Sometime later that day, a lady from the company called and asked for the move out form. They gave me a different email address to send it to and I did so. We still have not received that move out form but we have moved them out of the units, as at this point, it has finally become clear that they moved out. They lady once again asked if we could do anything about the money, said she understood that they made an error, but it was a lot of money, even though they were willing to pay it. I said unfortunately there was nothing to be done, mostly because our software is limited in what we can refund but also because of the rudeness and the principle that they need to be held accountable for their actions, or lack of actions. We have not yet received the form. We are not surprised. For the record, I did not tell them to "shut their ******* mouth," I said "You should have signed the ******* contract" (this after consistent arguing over nonsense). They then became offend that I used a curse word (******* is not a curse word) and demanded to speak with someone higher. I (the writer of this and the business manager) am the highest it goes. We here at Linden Self Storage want to remind this former tenant that this is "self" storage. It is not our job to manage or anticipate our customers, only to facilitate the use of the units. We expect honesty and common sense from our customers and we have not received that from these tenants. I did also tell them to shut up, because they were consistently talking over me when I was trying to give them the information they asked for.  We will not refund any amount of money. We are frankly shocked at your rudeness over the phone and in the BBB letter you sent. All businesses have the right to operate their business in any way they see fit within the bounds of the law, as we have done. If a company is to be shut down, perhaps the one that lost $4500 should be first, as we have a tight hold on our finances. You should instead look inward to your own employees and ensure that proper accounting controls are in order and communication between employees and management of your company is open. As a kinder grader, I'll give your business a C-, not good, but passing, as clearly you're doing well enough to overlook $4500.  I think it should go without saying that we will never do business with the tenant or company again and will certainly never recommend them to any of our tenants. Also, the person that they spoke to on the phone is a he, not a she. It seems to me that in their complaint they didn't believe that the person they thought was a she was the manager, which is off. Lastly, they should never recommend us to a homeless person, it is illegal to live in a storage unit. The fact that they do not know this is concerning to say the least.  

  Customer response

  11/13/2023

  Better Business Bureau:  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint.   Regards,  ***** **********

  Customer response

  11/14/2023

  This is in response to the business.    I’m not usual the back and forth with a person nevertheless a business but your ability to not be understanding and empathetic isn’t something I should expect but then telling the story to lean in your favor is bias in every way. I can’t recall arguing but let’s go step by step of what I do recall happened. After looking over my business account I see a charge I’m not familiar with and call the driver who at this point who believes he’s closed the unit. He tells me that the units should be closed and that my dispatcher received a phone call from your facility mentioning the trash that needed to be cleaned we at that time sent someone to clean the trash so that we were not fined or have to pay for a unit to be cleaned which is most likely in a contract that was never signed or even read because it was never sent to the correct email. My first question is, why at the time they came back to clean the unit did someone not request for the form to be signed I mean this is back in July when we were under the assumption that the unit was closed out. Also, why when we open the unit did you not request signatures for opening the unit at the time of the driver renting the unit whether it was after hours or during regular hours was there ever a phones call to confirm the email was received?  If you did the proper steps as a manager, we would not be receiving an opening contract and a close out form at the same time for a unit that should have been closed. (Mind you this form was never sent by you because you hung up abruptly, and never requested an updated email so my rep called and someone totally different in your office sent the forms to the business email.) I would also ask if you didn’t get a response after let’s say 10 attempts you or someone at your facility doesn’t reach out? I mean you reached out when the trash needed to be cleaned out the unit and received a response. But it wasn’t important enough for you to reach out in that instance you're receiving an extra 600 to 800 a month in storages. And you mean to tell me you all haven’t walked around the facility in let's say 5 months an seen 4 open units no locks, doors open, empty and didn’t question why they weren’t closed properly and were being paid for. Lastly, as a business owner myself I would never allow my employees to use profane language at any point in a conversation where a customer is upset knowing they are looking for clarification. And as a moving company I have storage contracts myself and have to be understanding to the customers concerns or questions about pricing and closing out the contracts. I would not hire or keep an employee that felt justified as to why they cussed at a customer or got so upset enough to hang up on a customer, but everyone runs their businesses differently. I was asking questions in a professional tone and trying to get a resolution but instead the manager starts to basically talk over me tell me to shut up when I’m attempting to get more clarification and just basically hang up on me despite what she’s saying she hung up prior to me even being able to say anything in a yelling or menacing tone. I won't lie, I don’t expect this to be resolved because she seems validated in her belief that the contract that I never read or signed allows her to steal money from my company. I could have negotiated half or some type of discount with the owner but to just say that all this money that was charged was OK, and then make a comment like" I'll give your business a C-, not good, but passing, as clearly, you're doing well enough to overlook $4500 because the card went through seems predatory. I pray that you all get it together and if you don't no worries this is not a battle, I want to fight I prefer to let the man upstairs handle people like yourself since it so easy for you to use his name in vain.   you all have a blessed winter. 

• Initial Complaint

  02/28/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I received a voicemail call from Linden Self Storage notifying me regarding a late payment on 02/16/20223. I called back that following Monday or Tuesday to update my mailing address and to make a payment with the late fee of $175.00. I wasn't able to pay through online services scheduled for 02/24/2023. After a few days went by, I Continued to try to pay after hours because of my work schedule. I called again today Monday 02/27/2023 at 10:05 AM to make a payment. I was told I was being charged auction fee of $50.00 and $10.00 processing fee totaling $60.00 in additional changes totaling $235.00. Brian who left a message never mentioned there was going to be any auction fees. I also spoke with someone else to remind them that I was going to make a payment online 02/24/2023 including the 25.00 late fee. Very disappointing and upset I had to pay additional fees that wasn't mentioned during those conversations. I just want those $60.00 fees returned.

  Business response

  03/10/2023

  To whom it may concern, We received your letter stating a complaint from ****** ******* and would like to respond to it. We called ****** on 2/16/2023 because he had not made his payment that was due on 2/1/2023 ($150 on the first and $175 starting 2/6/2023). He did not call us for another week about payment or his inability to log into the online system. By that time, his unit was in default and our only recourse (since calling him about his due bill was not getting us anywhere) was to set his unit to auction. NYS law about unit auction is very clear and we followed every letter of the law. We mailed a certified letter to the tenant with notice of intent to sell and stipulations for settlement (in cash, in person, as checks can bounce, and credit cards can be disputed). We set up a written publication in a local newspaper that will run twice per NYS law. These things cost money that NYS law allows us to pass on to the tenants account. This is the only legal recourse storage facilities have to remove tenants that do not pay. It is also stipulated in the Lease Agreement signed by ****** that we have this recourse any time after the bill is past (6 days after the first). We will generally wait much later in the month to consider this recourse, as we understand that some people have unique payment schedules. We cannot, however, allow bills to remain unpaid, as running a facility like ours is not cheap and the auction process itself is not cheap either. What is disappointing is that the employee that ****** spoke was willing to waive the publication fee ($50), but ****** was consistently rude and interrupting the employee that they were unable to convey that to them. After a while the employee gave up and we, as management are inclined to back them on this decision. We will not refund ****** *******'s additional fees. If he is unhappy with the services we provide or the terms of service that he agreed to, we're happy to assist him with the move out process. Thank you BBB for facilitating this conversation and we hope to receive a response soon. Thank you, Linden Self Storage Management Linden Self Storage 870 Linden Avenue Rochester NY 14625 ROCHESTER NY 144 

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩