Across the nation.
Oh man, he rammed right into that car.
Police are chasing down
U-Haul trucks from California
right there. There it is there's the
accident right there hey don't move get
back inside the truck now to Florida fast.
That truck is reported stolen to Georgia,
so they stole a whole U-Haul.
The ultimate moving violation and
everything they had. They were moving.
This is all. It's nothing,
it's everything we own just gone
like that overnight. Kathleen
Zinni and her family packed their
entire lives into a 26 foot U-Haul
moving from Florida to Huntsville.
We had to make a decision where we
going to stop for the night and I
specifically said I didn't really
feel like stopping in a big city like
Atlanta and so we chose Macon. This is
surveillance video of the xeneas U-Haul,
leaving the hotel parking lot without them in
it. My husband is looking out the
window and he said EU hauls gone.
It was found days later in Metro
Atlanta empty except for an upright
piano and some of the kids toys.
It's almost as if someone did a
home theft and emptied the house.
I mean that would never happen.
They would maybe take a TV or jewelry
or you know computers but they
wouldn't take your children shoes
or clothes or your photo books.
I mean they would leave all that
stuff and we lost all that.
This U-Haul was locked right?
Oh absolutely even the back door
was locked yes with a padlock yes
but they stole the whole thing.
Yes
everything was in that U-Haul
including the families checkbook.
Cash one check. They tried to second in
the very next day. They tried a third.
How much money were they
writing these checks for?
807 hundred almost 900.
They've already taken everything you own.
Yeah, and now they're out there trying
to steal from your bank account.
Yeah, it's wrong. Lowest of the low.
Does it surprise you how quickly
they're able to steal these?
Few halls and drive away
with everything inside.
It is surprising to me,
but it's also shows a pattern that
these guys know what they're doing.
They've done it several times.
The Bibb County Sheriff's Office is
investigating 5 U-Haul thefts from hotel
parking lots near the Interstate and the
crimes appear to be connected in each of
these cases EU haul was recovered
in Metro Atlanta. Yes, Sir.
This U-Haul found abandoned in Atlanta,
was stolen from a Macon Hotel 80 miles away.
The APD officer wrote that he ran
the license plate because of a
recent increase in U-Haul thefts.
He then dusted for prints himself.
Smarties days, but the zanies U-Haul
wasn't dusted for fingerprints,
according to the lead investigator
on the case. U-Haul
recovered the vehicle not police
up in Metro Atlanta, right?
That's correct, they actually
contacted her and she contacted us.
What size Chuck are we talking about?
I was stolen on Atlanta.
Police report shows.
Officers were also unable to get evidence
from another recovered U-Haul last October,
the officer wrote no prints were
taken due to U-Haul workers entering
the cab before I arrived on scene.
Just weaving in and out
of traffic here U-Haul,
declined to tell us how many of its
vehicles are stolen every year.
It's right there just crash,
but the company is also a
victim of each of those thefts.
And U-Haul says it employs a robust
investigations unit that works
closely with law enforcement agencies.
In all, we reviewed 38 police reports
of stolen or recovered U hauls
from 3 Georgia police departments.
DeKalb gave us 21 incident reports for
stolen or recovered U-Haul since 2020.
Two more for Penske Trucks and
one for budget.
Atlanta has at least 13
U-Haul cases since 2019.
Thank you for calling U-Haul
your current wait time is
approximately 40 to 50 minutes.
They told me my wait times
like 50 minutes, Atlanta
police body camera recording,
show officers having trouble trying
to get a license plate number or
report stolen vehicles to U-Haul.
Yes we are open.
This officer spent 25 minutes on hold
with U-Haul just trying to get the
license plate number for a family.
Rental truck that had just been stolen
outside a Buckhead diner in 2020.
I'm looking at it that you
are equipment contract,
but I don't see the tag.
I want the customer service
representatives are currently
assisting other families,
but the problem is they don't have the
tag number for EU haul so I can't even
put EU haul in the system as stolen.
The officer finally got the correct
tag number more than two hours after
first responding to the scene.
So it's Arizona.
How important is getting that
tag number to put out a BOLO
or be on the lookout for us?
That is very crucial.
In one case, didn't U-Haul
say that they wanted you to
contact their legal department
just to get A tag they did?
We rented a 26 foot U-Haul.
The license plate is printed on the
contract along with other numbers
but on the copy we were given at the
time of rental the tag number was
not labeled and that contract is
sometimes inside the stolen truck.
Only a proprietary serial number is on
the key, which in those in each case was
the only thing they were left holding.
U-Haul told us it developed a website
quote specifically to meet the
contact and information needs of law
enforcement truck rental security.com.
If you are a law enforcement
agency, please press 1. This
Atlanta officer was connected immediately
after she got the correct number online.
This is Patricia. Did
you still have homeowners
insurance or renters insurance?
It didn't become active until
the day we closed on our house,
which we were in transit
to close on the House,
which happened two days after the theft.
So we were absolutely
not covered by insurance
and there's no insurance through
UHAUL or anything like that.
The only insurance through
UHAUL covers the stolen vehicle.
None of our personal belongings. So
you've lost everything and
you really lost it, yeah?
On its website U-Haul advertises
cargo protection that covers
losses from collision,
fire, windstorm or overturn.
But the fine print shows
it does not cover theft,
burglary or robbery,
and Uhaul is not required
to use any kind of tracking
devices in its vehicles.
I hope that it never happens
to anyone ever again.