I’m not paying it!
I get very uppity about money and bills. Sometimes I wonder if I spend too much time fussing over some of these little details. But when someone is trying to come between me and my money, I take notice and action. We’ve been going through lots of homeowner stress the past two weeks and have dropped lot of money on repair and treatment products in the mean time. I don’t really mind the money spent since it’s been to fix things that needed fixed, but it makes me much less tolerant of any unexpected bills that show up at the same time.
Our house has a 30+ year old boiler that supplies our heat and hot water. On Saturday or Sunday last week, we suddenly had no hot water. This isn’t really a big deal since the partner is pretty good at fixing things; the complicated part is figuring out what is wrong. But, it threw a kink in our regularly schedule programming. At this time, we also noticed we were finally almost out of fuel (see below) and thought that might be contributing to the problem, but turns out that it was just a coincidence and we managed to solve the broken boiler before solving the lack of oil.
One of our in-progress projects was replacing our ancient oil tank with a newer tank. We’d placed all our oil deliveries on hold so that we could run the tank empty and switch them out. However, while we’d finally run low enough to make the switch, the heat, broken boiler, and the impending baby arrival made us rethink that plan and decide that late fall would be better timing. So, we called our oil company for a delivery and let them know we hadn’t switched tanks yet.
The oil company insisted that the tank had to be inspected before they’d deliver oil. This made no sense and I argued about it being the same tank they’d been filling, but they insisted and I finally shrugged it off and agreed. We had a tech out that afternoon. The tech takes two seconds, a quick swipe of his hand on the underside of our tank, and fails it. Crap! Then, he gives the partner a $50 bill for the inspection – what?! No one said anything to me about charging me $50 for the inspection — I was pissed and immediately called to refuse to pay it. The reasoning: no one told me that there would be a charge for the inspection. Had they mentioned it upfront, I would have hemmed and hawed until the dropped the inspection requirement in general. It also didn’t improve my spirits that we now had to switch out tanks.
Fuel oil companies are very competitive with each other and there is nothing holding me to this particular company. Also, because we’d had our oil deliveries on hold for so long and were still on monthly budget billing, we have a sizable credit with them that I was more than willing to take elsewhere. I immediately called the company and got an agreeable CSR on the phone who was a bit stubborn at first but quickly realized I was much more stubborn. She wasn’t able to cancel the charge, but she gave me an extra $50 credit on our account to cover it – problem solved.
The tech that failed our tank said that they probably wouldn’t be a charge for the to reinspect the new tank that we now had to put in. This wasn’t the case when it came time (the next day) for that inspection. But, the person on the phone did let me know about the charge ahead of time and I was going to let it go. That was until the oil company dropped the ball…
When the new tank passed inspection, a delivery should have been ordered right then. The tech called in the passed inspection as he was supposed to, but a delivery order wasn’t placed. Around 4pm this afternoon (on a Friday) I noticed we still didn’t have oil and called to find out if the truck was running late. Since I called so late, I was told there was nothing they could do and it’d be Monday, maybe, before a delivery could be made. Also, I was told that I have to call back first thing on Monday to make sure an order is placed (why do I have to call again?) and that it may still be another day or so after that since they only travel to my area once or twice a week during the summer – most customers use oil for heating only and they reduce their trucks and staff in the summer.
So, considering this issue too – I’m going to write a letter about the entire ordeal to the company and will expect some sort of corrective action (in financial form) for this entire ordeal. In the meantime, I’m thankful that I’ve got such a talented partner and know that we’ll have hot water even with an empty oil tank over the weekend – of course, I don’t need to let the fuel oil company know that.