ComplaintsforWildhorse Propane & Appliance

• Initial Complaint

  12/28/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  absolutely the worst customer service. The tank i rented from them leaked and instead of pro-rating the cost of refueling based on historical usage date, they chose to **** me for a total refueling and ignored my emails and phone calls questioning the validity of the ****. Based on the three years of historical billing, I would have used about half of what was billed at most. total **** was over **** to refill the nearly empty tank in November after the leak occurred on their equipment when I normally am billed around **** for the same timeframe. The tank is rented through them and therefore I expected it to be in good working order and when it's not, then it is their responsibility to cover the losses.

  Business response

  01/25/2023

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2023/01/03) */ I listed the sequence of events, and then will go into the customers historical usage. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. Customer called in on Sunday the 20th of November @3:54 stating he had a leak and was at 20%. That same day Steve came out on a Sunday to service the leak, and had completed the task by 6:30pm. The gauge still read 20% which would be around 50 gallons(this is confirmed in the later fill up) . Customer received a fill on 11/23/2022 for 179.3 gallons. If you take the 179.3+50=229.3 gallons(90ish% winter fill, 65ish% summer fill). The 20%(50 gallons) was accounted for with this fill Customer was emailed on 11/28/22 from our office stating they credited him 20 gallons for the fill. They did not receive an email response back. *We later found out he did email us, but it went to our junk folder. We were unaware of his email until he provided screen shots for us. Customer called in once in early December and left a message for our biller in response to that email. That was his one and only call. He wrote a very negative review on ****** in December, and I called the customer that same day to understand how I could help him. The customer' statement that we are ignoring his calls and emails is false. Historical data: 2019=297 gallons/275 days= 1.08gal/day 2020=386.6 gallons/365 days=1.06g/day 2021=443.9 gal/365 days=1.22g/day 2022=512.3 gal/365 days=1.40g/day Customer's 2020 to 2021 usage is substantially different. It would be very odd to have a leak for two years without catching it(between the customer and driver's provision), so I gather their usage has gone up. However, I did see the 2021-2022 usage is higher by 68.4 gallons. We already credited him 20 gallons back in November, and another 48.4 gallons in December. There are three things to note this is a substantially colder winter, customer had a low-mid grade gauge leak, and his last fill was back on July 7th of 2022. All we have is the timeframe customer called to report the leak(@20%), mentioned in the beginning of the email, to when our service tech fixed it(gauge still @20%). We thought we were being more than fair by working off last years data and crediting him the additional 48.4 gallons. Consumer Response /* (3000, 9, 2023/01/10) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) They have used the entire usage timeframe in their calculations to their advantage since usage typically increases in December which is typically reflected in a January bill and followed up again in March/April with another large fill. 2021 is larger than 2020 due to Covid and teleworking so the heat was on more in the house than the previous years. This will likely continue and is irrelevant moving forward. Since i always have gotten a winter fill around November, it's easy to see that my usage through November is typically around 90-95 gallons so they still owe another 20 gallons to be refunded as it had NOT been a cold winter at the time the tank began leaking and I shared that with them using my smart thermostat history which showed only 65 hours usage prior to the leak. for reference, the usage after the fill increased significantly to 166 hours. The difference being the average weekly usage jumped from 14 hours/week to 26 hours/week once it actually got cold. I did send multiple emails them to two different addresses. when I spoke to them in January after being ignored i was informed one of them was not monitored but nothing in the email states that address is not monitored. also they did reply to an email is sent and replied to that email which was never answered. this is the email they state went to junk email. then I called them and spoke with someone in the office for 6 minutes and was told it would be taken care of and then nothing happened so i left the google review they are referring to and submitted this complaint. Using E-mail addresses that are not monitored and not checking for junk mail to see that i did in fact reply to an email they had sent in response to an email I sent are business processes that failed being used as excuses while they try to blame the customer for not contacting them. Also, their response to the leak was outstanding. They came to repair it within hours of notification. My issue is with their staff ignoring my concerns and using technology as an excuse for not responding by stating my response to them went to junk and that my one phone call to their office for 6 minutes wasn't an honest attempt to work with them. And when i pointed out the error of their math since they are taking into account average usage throughout the entire year instead of just the summer and the very beginning of the heater usage season, they only "agreed to disagree" via email instead of contacting my by phone to discuss...they only contacted me telephonically once and when i presented them with these concerns only sent emails. then increased rates from $3.80/gallon on 22 November to $4.10/gallon on 5 January which does not appear to coincide with any inflationary or cost increases i could find anywhere else. Business Response /* (4000, 11, 2023/01/16) */ As mentioned previously I cannot pinpoint the time of the leak. We matched your previous years total gallons. (Side note people have been using much more fuel this year due to the weather, but we still matched your previous year). Your previous years usage is not a normal predictable pattern(as you see your variances every year). It is an industry standard to go off the previous year as a whole, since there is not a meter. We responded within two hours of being notified of the leak. It would appear you are now adding another accusation to your claim. As for the cost per gallon of propane we keep our same margin year round, however the wholesale market goes up drastically from summer to winter. We are not a wholesaler, and our prices our subject to the wholesale market. At this point we are continuing to go around in a circle, and you are adding more claims to your position. We have truly tried to be more than fair, and it seems you are still deeply dissatisfied. There are several good companies that service your area. I will reach out to you personally this week to help you transition to another company. Thank you Consumer Response /* (2000, 13, 2023/01/20) */ (The consumer indicated he/she ACCEPTED the response from the business.) it's pointless to continue this discussion when the business continues insist the leak cannot be pinpointed (it can) and that it occurred outside the high usage months, likely the week of the leak since that was the FIRST cold week since the previous winter and the person who came out to fix it told me this was common when it first starts getting cold as the metal expands and contracts significantly. My thermostat usage data clearly shows minimal usage since the fill prior to the leak in July 22. Looking at statistics given for national propane costs over this timeframe, the average cost of propane did not increase significantly and while they do not specifically call out ********** rates, I would still expect the general rise and fall of prices to be similar. 2-3 cents nationally with some places back east with snow seeing up to 10 cents/gallon but 30 cents/gallon is a definite outlier to any rational rate increase. I would expect a customer-oriented business such as this to cover all losses when I rent the propane tank from them annually so maintenance and upkeep, if any, would be there responsibility and when seals fail it would also be there responsibility. I will be looking for another service provider once winter has passed. preferably one that understands this concept and doesn't try to use skewed mathematical methods to recover as much of the loss from me as possible.

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