Chicago Ridge man's fight over U-Haul storage fees unravels $50,000 mystery
CHICAGO RIDGE, Ill. (CBS) – Storage units can hold a lot of secrets.
Unlike a true crime podcast, this story doesn't involve anything seedy, but CBS 2's Lauren Victory did unravel a money mystery in the suburbs.
Bill Lammel's boxes contain a variety of treasures. Some are pretty sentimental, like a figurine of a loon.
"The significance of loons is my father," he said. "That was his favorite bird."
Many mementos were locked away for a home renovation.
"They had to tear this floor all down to the bones, so I had to get a storage unit to get rid of all this extra stuff," Lammel said.
His story about storage began in August 2021 at a Chicago Ridge U-Haul affiliate called "U-Store It." One day, Lammel stopped by to retrieve a few things and saw signs on the facility's front door.
"It said it was taken over by the Village of Chicago Ridge," he said. "I was totally confused because I never received anything from anybody to say that."
Chicago Ridge Mayor Charles Tokar said his staff couldn't contact anyone because they couldn't figure out who all the items belonged to. In October 2021, the village acquired the U-Store It property after its owner didn't pay taxes for several years. One by one, customers like Lammel saw the signs and followed instructions from the village.
"They were now the landlords," Lammel said, and he had "to pay rent to them on a monthly basis."
Eventually, the Chicago Ridge man stopped keeping his stuff at the facility. After dragging his belongings back home, Lammel noticed something on his Discover card bill: $80 charge after $80 charge to "U-Haul International" for storage.
Even though he'd been giving the village rent, he was double paying, but his credit card dispute to Discover was denied.
"And then, it kept happening," Lammel said.
There were more $80 charges, even though the boxes were no longer in storage. So, why was Lammel paying for a service he wasn't using and for a business that was shut down?
CBS 2 tracked down the former owner of the storage business, Sam Shuman, who said he hadn't received a nickel from customers since closing shop more than a year and a half ago.
Shuman was frustrated and uninterested in meeting CBS 2 for an interview about a situation he called "petty." It turned out to be anything but petty.
CBS 2 learned more than $50,000 is owed to Shuman's customers, but U-Haul has their money, not Shuman.
U-Haul was auto-billing customers, and it wasn't by mistake. A U-Haul spokesperson said U-Store's owner never canceled his contract with U-Haul's online reservation and billing platform called WebSelfStorage.
"We did not mishandle billing, but simply processed transactions in accordance with an active affiliate agreement," according to a U-Haul statement. "Had the business owner followed deactivation procedures, per the affiliate agreement, customers would have been spared of a lot of frustration."
Shuman said returning the U-Haul equipment should've been an indication he closed. He also shut down his business bank account. That's why $50,000 of customer payments wound up in an escrow account.
A U-Haul spokesperson also said the company tried to ask Shuman if he was closed, but no one could contact him. Despite all that, U-Haul considered the auto-billed charges legitimate, which might explain why Discover denied Lammel's dispute.
Lammel said between October of 2021 and July of 2023, he was charged a total of $1,821.
Victory: "That's a lot of money."
Lammel: "Yeah."
He said he spent much of his summer on the phone fighting those charges and looking for answers from U-Haul, Discover, U-Store It, and more.
The case is now closed, but only after CBS 2 got involved. U-Haul reached out with a refund offer. Lammel and U-Haul are still coordinating his refund check.
After CBS 2 started asking questions, U-Haul stopped auto-billing U-Store It customers.
If you think part of the $50,000 collected is yours, U-Haul said it can refund payments made since March 2022 upon verification. Customers can contact Russ Baldwin, director of WebSelfStorage, by emailing Russ_Baldwin@uhaul.com or by calling him at 480-568-4709.