Richard's Fuel and Heating Inc.

Company is billing me for automatic oil delivery after I had cancelled in June 2012 following their faulty installation.I've switched to gas. . .3-23-12 sent a letter with my concerns in brief - Richard's installed a Buderus G115 furnace & Super Stor SSU hot water tank on 12-15- 2011 at [redacted] have had numerous follow up calls due to the newly installed system not functioning properly and in some of the cases not functioning at all. I believe my per day oil consumption had gone up rather than down this year ("Winter of '12 was 4th mildest on record" as reported by WWLP & NOAA) as well as since the systems have been installed my electric bills have gone from up by more than doubled. After contacting [redacted] directly concerning the invoices & they assure me the meters are fine & if anything meters would charge less rather than more if they were functioning improperly. Following the installation of my new furnace & hot water system my monthly invoices have jumped from the mid $60. up to $143.-$149.. This didn't make sense to me since this new high-eff. system was replacing a 26 year old in-eff. Pearless system (that Richard's declared wouldn't likely last the winter) that both my oil & utility consumption would go up rather than down. Which I never received a formal reply to - I did receive a hand written note saying they didn't have comparative data (though we'd owned & used the old system in the prior season for those same months that were in question). I did additionally receive a letter giving me a free cleaning but, no reply to my concerns. Following up with [redacted], other oil companies, electricians, plumbers and [redacted] they all seem to agree there was definitely something wrong. But, all agreed troubleshooting would need to be done & likely costly if the company that installed didn't stand by their work because the problems while evident from what I was able to provide the problems were not obvious easy fixes. 4-6-13 sent a letter relaying in brief-I just received an invoice in the mail for alleged deliveries which I believe this bill to be erroneous. I did not sign up for automatic deliveries for the season nor did I renew my service plans with Richard's. I have switched to gas heat & hot water at both my rental property and my primary residence. I had a full tank at the beginning of season (because they filled it in June). They did not list when these alleged deliveries been made and who authorized these deliveries. I was not made aware of any deliveries as no slips were left at the house for the alleged delivery(s) it must have happened when no one was home. I had severed my relationship with Richard's back in the spring of last year (June 2012) after paying my last invoice online I stopped into the office & I commented on the rather late in the season delivery at what I had considered a high cost time and explained I should be removed from the auto delivery list. I had rec'd a VM in late Feb saying that I was behind on my auto delivery (which since I did not renew & specifically stopped by the office to stop) I sincerely believed they had contacted the wrong person. I admittedly was discarding all mail from Richard's which I had considered to be junk mail from your company until receiving the voicemail message in late Feb. But, this did lead me to open the most recent correspondence. I had no intention of enabling the co. that installed & didn't stand by their installation of a faulty & inefficient system that I paid top dollar for to be able to reap the benefits of oil sales to me (that's simply adding insult to over a $7,000. injury). Richard's didn't even have the decency to provide a formal response addressing my concerns to my from my 3-23-12 letter which is what led me to stop in in person to relay my desire to be removed from the automatic delivery list.Every other year I've had to actively sign up for auto delivery it's never automatically renewed in the past. Flags going all the way up the 375ft driveway which were visible throughout the winter, the churned up earth the gas meter installed within a couple of ft of the oil filDesired SettlementWaive any and all oil charges (& fees associated) that I did not order, provide a refund on the installation and pay for clean up the oil spilled.Business' Initial Response Unfortunately there must have been some miscommunication regarding the oil account. We obviously still had the account on automatic delivery. With our company automatic delivery remains in effect every year unless the customer notifies us to stop the automatic delivery. There is no requirement to sign up each year for this service. If the customer had stopped into the office to notify us of the discontinuation in service we would have sent the customer a letter of confirmation. Had the customer come in after the November 19th delivery we could have corrected this problem quickly and come to the house to remove the 98.9 gallons that we had pumped into the oil tank. The account was set up to hold the delivery slip and mail it out - this was the customers request upon setting up the original account. We mailed out a copy of the oil delivery ticket which is the bill as we had for all past deliveries on November 21st - 3 days after the delivery. The customer again should have again notified us of this error and we would not be where we are today. Being that the account was still on automatic delivery we made a second delivery to the home on January 11, 2013 even though the customer had an outstanding balance with us from the prior delivery. We had been the provider for several years and had not wanted the customer to run out of oil in the middle of the winter. We again mailed a copy of that bill with the balance from the prior delivery on the billing on January 28, 2013. Again if the customer had called we could have pumped the oil from the tank. We mailed several statements with notes for payment, we made a phone call about the balance and we also sent a letter changing your account status from an automatic delivery customer to a will call customer because of nonpayment of the outstanding balance. To all of these communications from us to you we have heard nothing. We only received this letter from you after we sent a statement asking you if we must take legal action to collect the outstanding money due our company for oil delivered.You mention that our driver should have seen the gas flags and gas meter being installed at your house; this is true however many of our customers have gas stoves and gas dryers and remain to heat with oil heat. We had no idea what was occurring in your house. We are saddened that we could not help you with the problems with your new heating system. We did send you a letter verifying that we would stand behind the new boiler with an additional years warrantee as you requested. We attempted to explain to you the oil usage comparing the new system with the past system. It is hard to calculate the savings from the old system to the new one because of the date of installation versus the date you had moved into the house. It is true that the new heating system had some problems after first being installed but we did respond to each call to correct the problems at no charge to you. The fact is that the customer used this oil that we delivered to the house to heat the house and the hot water. If the customer had not been on the automatic delivery service with our company they would have run out of oil this past winter - they must have known the oil was coming from somewhere. We would like payment for this oil. We are offering if the customer still has the tank in the basement and would like us to remove the oil to give a credit for the gallons in the tank we would be happy to do that. We will remove the finances charges from the bill and still give the discount of 15 cents per gallon if paid before April 30th. If no payment is made unfortunately we will have to take legal action to settle this matter.Consumer's Final Response (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)I contracted with Richard's to install a high-efficiency Buderus GXXX-XX oil fired boiler & water heater. I had anticipated that this would be performed in a professional manner according to standard practices as Richard's contract stated. However, the Richard's installed materials had an unacceptable volume of system failures (ranging from zone failures, parts failure, excessive oil consumption, $100 per month electric bill increase in every month the system was not off to the entire system failing) and Richard's failed to ever get the system to function at the intended high-efficiency level that I was promised. Additionally, Richard's left a trail of oil strewn from the old system removal that originated at the boiler through the cellar down the hall up the stairs & through the garage (later others explained this is considered hazardous waste that Richard's should have addressed). Energy costs soared by more than one hundred dollars additional per month whenever the Richard's installed furnace was in use.I had contacted [redacted] and [redacted] by phone as well as having [redacted], another local oil company, independent electrician & plumber come and observe the system (showing them the oil deliveries & electric bills that I had already provided to Richard's) they all agreed that these would not be what would result from a properly installed brand new high-efficiency functioning unit. Richard's agent, [redacted] had fielded many of my complaints (and was well apprised of my concerns) he had acknowledged that this was in no way a normal installation experience and that Richard's had never had this many problems (repeatedly zones not working, full system down, parts failing, gauges filling with condensation, etc.) immediately following any installation but, did nothing to address the known ill-operation of the system. Richard's official response was to not respond to both my oil and my electric bills skyrocketing in the 4th warmest year on record. I am in no way inclined to compensate Richard's for their un-businesslike behavior and attempted continued extortion of me. In June I physically stopped into Richard's office and verbally removed myself from the automatic delivery list with one of Richard's agents. Richard's failure to communicate internally and their poor business practices should be dealt with internally not passed along to current and/or past customers. I have not order any fuel from Richard's this heating season. I am paid in full for all goods and services that I have ordered through Richard's. I had in fact been a customer off & on since the purchase of my 1st home in 1992 - I have NEVER requested my slips to be held as Richard's falsely states (2 consecutive slips were not rec'd in the 2003-2008 range & resulted in slips being mailed which was Richard's solution to that problem). I had (on more than one occasion) requested of Richard's to stop the practice of holding of slips at my current residence. I have not received slips for any of the alleged deliveries Richard's claims to have made. Both my heating and hot water have been converted to gas. Richard's failed to honor their contract with me by standing behind the items they installed and chose to completely ignore all my numerous pleas (phone calls, visits to the office, in person during each and every service call and in writing) for help. Offering a discount on something I never ordered and don't believe was ever delivered is simply ridiculous and Richard's behavior in this entire matter from the faulty installation leaving me to deal with their lemon through to the charges for alleged oil deliveries is appalling completely unprofessional and totally unacceptable. Any and all charges associated with the alleged deliveries should be cleared from my account, I should be compensated for the excessive utilities expenses I incurred and the furnace which was a lemon right from the start that Richard's installed (and I am paying a heat loan for) and refused to acknowledge and would not stand behind.Definitions (Webster's New World Dictionary, Pocket Size Edition, Reissued: July 1983):high - above others in rank, position, etc.; superiorefficient - producing the desired result with a minimum of effort, expense or waste Business' Final Response I am not sure of the miscommunication here with regards to your oil account, however since your oil account was set up you have asked us to hold the slip and mail you the bill. Your comment regarding us leaving the oil when no one was home and not leaving a delivery slips makes no sense because this was the way your account has always been set up; we deliver the oil and mail you a copy of the slip, which is your bill. You had admitted to not opening your mail from our company until we send you a statement suggesting we take legal action for your unpaid bills. We offered to give you a discount and waive the finance fees - we believe this was a fair offer since the oil was in your tank and you did use this oil to heat your house and for your hot water. We will extend offer of waiving the finances fees of $42.74 and extend the discount amount of $28.29 if paid by May 30, 2014. We cannot help you in any way with a heating system that does not exist, had you notified us before you switched to gas to remove the old heating system we may have been able to work out a credit for the boiler if we had taken it back and again been able to buy back any unused oil in your tank. However we cannot work out an agreement with the material already removed from the basement. We are still willing to give the above mentioned discounts on the oil that was delivered and used.