Hart Petroleum

In August 2008 I had my Annual contractual checkup of the oil heating system by a Hart technician and everything was OK. On September 29th I got a delivery of Heating Oil. Soon after the oil delivery, as the weather got colder, I noticed that the boiler was not firing and called Hart. The Hart technician pointed out that lots of water was in the tank, he removed 15 gallons and stated that lots more needed to be removed. The Oil tank is in my basement with both the filling pipe and vent pipe going into the basement about 1 foot into the ground and then through the wall. I was told by the Hart technician that the water got into the tank through the underground pipes, but he never even inspected the pipes. I did, and found no problem with the pipes that would allow 50 gallons of water to seep into the oil tank in about a month, with very little rain.

After numerous attempts to get the Company's attention to the water in the tank problem, I finally had the service manager, Mark C, to come to the house and see for himself whether that much water could have gone into the tank through the pipes or was actually pumped into the tank from the September Oil Delivery. Mark, after assessing the problem, immediately called in an emergency crew to come and drain the water from the oil tank. A few weeks later I received a bill from Hart for about $700.00 to pay for the removal of the water from the oil tank which was put there from the Hart Oil deleivery.

I was very surprised that I would be charged for Hart's problem, in addition, I had paid deerly for the combo Oil and water (about 50 gallons as removed from the tank) delivery. I expected to be offered at least a refund of the $4 to $5 dollars a gallon that I had paid. Once again, I and my wife have attempted numerous times to talk to someone at Hart that would understand the situation. Finally I found out the Hart had stopped all Oil Deliveries to my House. It is now New Years Eve and New Years Day with the temperature outside near record lows and NO HEAT in the house. Thanks to Heart Petroleum.

I went off cap pricing from 2007-early 2008 due to fact oil prices have come down so much. The company made an automatic delivery without authorization and charged me $3.439 per gallon and made 199 gallon delivery. The going rate at the time was/is $2.25 + vicinity. Is there not some regulatory agency that prodects consumers from being charged to much. Especially in this economy? i did pay them, but certainly will not be using them in future but did previously pay for service contract and will have to fight them to get that back.

I paid close to $200 more for fuel and will have to go back thru my records to see how much I paid for service contract which obviously I will not use, will have to establish with a more market conscious company