is this acceptable practise from Total oil?

caris

We are on an automatic top-p with Total for our heating oil and have been paying £50 a month as set by them.

Last year we received a letter from them saying they were increasing the payments to £105 a month, my OH phoned them and said he was not happy with this rise, and they said it was because we had been "booked" a delivery, my OH said that we did not need one as we still had plenty of oil to last at least 8/9months, so they agreed not to put up the direct debit.

At the end of Dec we received another letter staing the same and my OH took the same action.

Last Friday morning at 8.10am Total arrived and filled up our tank without warning, on the ticket left it showed that the oil had been "booked" for delivery, we had NOT arrange for delivery of any oil. We were registering 3 (only in the last few days dropped to this) on the watchman, which going by our usage would have took us throug to the beginning of May, so we could have gone without a delivery.

Today on checking our internet banking I was astounded to see a DD for £105:eek:. On checking the DD list it showed that this was for Total Oil. We are going to find this extra £55 amonth difficult to find on top of everything else that has gone up.

Can we get Total to drop the DD back to the original £50 as we did not order the oil, and have they breached anything by upping our payment by so much without our authorisation.

Eliza_2

This sounds awful and at best incompetent. Why don't you just cancel the whole thing, put £50 a month away in a separate account, then ring round to get the best price from the different companies when you start getting low on oil. The money will be there in your account waiting to be paid, and you, not Total,. will be getting the admittedly meagre interest on it. In that way you get the best price at that moment for oil, and can sometimes find that the different companies will vie with each other for your custom, you will come off much better.

As a matter of interest, how much was the oil per litre?

Liz

caris

Thank you for your reply.

We dont know yet how much the oil is per litre, as yet we have not received the invoice, the delivery driver just left the slip in the post box, which is a printed slip, showing that he delivered 800 litres and the pre printed dates for delivery between 31 Jan '11 and 14 Feb '11. I expect that will be another shock when we see the price.

Cidersid

If you did not order oil...make them pay for it!!!!! but be careful - if you signed up for the top up scheme when you signed the DD then they are within their rights to come fill your tank up..and charge you what they like for it!!

If they did deliver it in error then legally i'm not sure they can charge you for it?? at the worst you should be paying a very very reduced rate...trust me they don't want the hassle of coming to take the fuel back out again.

keep on their case, but from wha ti read they're not the most customer friendly company....(shhh i use to work them a few years ago)