Got This Bill in the Mail Yesterday! !

I have a 90+ L.P. furnace that gets a test run every fall for 15-20 minutes and the thermostat gets set at 52.
I average about 16-17 months on 200 gal. of "Liquid Profane" heating my water. I did a full fill back in Aug. at $1.52/gal.,,1st time I've filled up in years.
I threatened to pull my old L.P. tank down to the state hi-way several years ago, lol, that company was shooting with a crooked stick.
My buddy waved off his L.P. delivery yesterday, the price was some $3.50 plus/gal., the delivery guy was cool with it.

 

Good idea! You must of got that idea from will711, I've heard he keeps a lock on his beer!

Gary

 

I had a local oil/propane company whom I had never done business with "mistakenly" deliver oil to my house several years ago. I gave them the choice of pumping it out or selling it to me at their cost. When I mentioned the mistake to the company I was doing business with they said that it is a very old and very illegal trick to try and gain customers.

 

Wife had that happen when we were just dating. At my suggestion he offered them the spot price (approx equal to the front month futures contract) which was about 60 cents per gallon below retail and representing a small loss for them... They took it.. Doesn't work as well in a market where commodity prices nearly double in a few short months. Not planning to fill the oil tank until July. Hopefully that will save me 50-60 cents per gallon.

 

In that situation, as long as you never had any contact with them, you were under no obligation to give it back or pay anything for it. They were trespassing, and if they said they would be coming back to pump it out, they'd be trespassing again.

 

Excellent idea...Just too late for me!!

 

That may depend on the living situation. House on lot, house in subdivision, condo, co-op, rented house, condo or apartment. In my wife's situation, the price they wanted was $2.89 per gallon and the price on the futures market was $2.29 per gallon. She offered them $2.29 per gallon and they took it. I think if you try to play hardball and try to just keep the oil they "mistakenly" pumped, they would bring their high dollar attorneys in and get a court order to allow them to pump it out. Then it's not trespassing, you're left with an empty oil tank and perhaps some hefty legal fees.

Pumping oil as a method of getting new customers is risky. Many oil tanks have been removed without the associated plumbing being taken out. A basement full of oil is EXPENSIVE to clean up.

In this particular in which propane prices have been so volatile (almost doubling in some places), I think just allowing them to recover the amount of propane that they pumped in due to their "mistake" is a reasonable solution.

 

I don't think it would come to that....the "high dollar attorneys" would probably cost more to the company than the oil, after all the court costs, time in court, paperwork, phone calls, etc, etc, all of which get charged to the company.

Just my opinion, but I'd fight it. It wasn't "me" who made the "mistake".

But glad she got a good deal on the oil anyway.

 

Unfortunately, the big companies already have attorneys on retainer so it wouldn't take much to file a paper in court that would require the consumer to get legal representation and respond. Heck, the legal papers are probably already drafted and just need the name of the person, address and number of gallons delivered. I agree that a full on legal battle would not be worth it for the company compared to the cost of the product in the tank, but word travels as to how situations are handled and if a company gets a reputation for just giving up, that can cost them a lot more in the long term. Companies make contributions to political leaders, political leaders appoint judges, and judges decide the cases. You see where I'm going with that. Also, even if the consumer won, they wouldn't be entitled to reimbursement of legal fees. In the eyes of the court, an attempt to come to a settlement goes a long way. Trying to get something for nothing does not.

If I was eatonpcat, I would tell the company they can either come pump out the propane or I will pay a reasonable price. While the EIA doesn't have summer time prices, it has prices from during the heating season. On the attached chart (with the lower prices) it shows that the wholesale price in Ohio has ranged from about $1.25/gal to $2.37/gal since October while on the other chart, it shows that Residential Prices have ranged from $2.09/gal to He was charged $4.06 per gallon. In this case, I'd be offering them $2.00/gal which is slightly lower than the average October retail price of $2.28/Gal over the last 4 years. If he filled for less than that during the summer, offer them that amount. It is also slightly lower than the price at which they could replace the LP from a new purchase. That would put the decision on the company as to whether or not they would send the truck to recover the propane paying for fuel, the truck and the driver or just eat a small loss and buy more propane at wholesale.

While I would share his initial sentiment of being P'ed Off, I would also look at this as an opportunity to get the tank filled for a discount rate from a company with which I was already doing business.

Just my opinion..

Oh yeah.. and my wife (GF at the time) was living in Washingtonville, in a rented apartment. Not far from you huh?

 

well, my father and BiL sell oil, retail, and this kind of thing does happen, and its usually simply by mistake (in the case of oil, anyhow)...usually wrong tank in an apartment building, etc......I have seen it go for "at cost" in this case, not a bad deal, except there really isn't much margin on oil.....as for attorney's on retainer? no.

As for oil fill plumbing left in place once a tank is removed, around these parts, that's a code violation......doesn't help with the oil in your basement though, which is very $$$$ to fix. Most liability insurance co's who insure the oil companies REQUIRE the tank to be checked for a new customer prior to even putting a drop in the tank. They have refused delivery to folks who will not allow their tanks to be checked (I wonder why?)........

 

The saga continues...Once I get this worked out, I will be putting a lock on the valve cover. Needed a fill up this summer anyway, so if I can get the gas at a reasonable price I will be happy to keep it! Only my stove top and furnace are gas, so a full tank will last me many years.

 

I put a piece of chain with a lock on it over my oil tank fill pipe. Ain't nobody filling my tank without bolt cutters or my knowledge. That was the only way I could get off the 'keep full' program years ago.

If they want to cut the chain and/or lock and fill the tank without sending me a bill, I'm OK with that. If they send a bill, I know who did it.

 

I rented in RI a couple of years ago and the landlord mandated the use of an oil company that was full of scheisters..

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/utilities/petro_oil.html

Needless to say, I did my research and figured I would save a bunch of money by spending $60 on one of these...

http://www.amazon.com/Heating-Tank-...F8&qid=1393466994&sr=8-5&keywords=spin+secure

It worked.. Successfully fended off the "mandatory automatic delivery" which was never written in my lease and probably saved myself a couple hundred bucks too...

 

That looks better than my rig.

The oil company I use (or used to use, they haven't been here for over 3 years) changed owners a few times. The latest owners probably don't even know I exist anymore. That's OK with me.

 

Someone my folks know in Maine had that happen.

Driver delivered to the wrong address.

Problem was they didn't have an oil tank hooked up to the pipes outside anymore, nor where they capped off. (I can't remember why anymore, pulled tank to replace maybe)

Anyhow, the diesel ended up flooding the finished basement Took alot of $$ to clean it up and get the diesel smell out of the house!
The fuel found it's way into the sump pit and got pumped into the septic. Had to dig all that out and treat it just like a fuel spill.

 

yea, that's a bad situation when that happens.......depending on state/federal laws, can be financially ruining. Point is, if you remove the tanks, make darn sure you remove the fill pipe as well! Pretty easy to do, and eliminates issues down the road. You might say "I'll just sue the oil co's a$$, etc", but the problem is, the DEP is going to force YOU, the property owner to clean up the spill on YOUR property while the gears of the law slowly grind...suits take years, whereas, you wont have years to clean it up......remove dem pipes if there isn't a tank hooked up!

 

Same exact thing happened near me about 10 yrs ago. BIG mess, lawsuits, etc.

 

That would really suck!!