Add your feedback on heating oil broker Fueltool

A._Badger

Born_Cynic wrote: »

Be very careful when comparing Fuel Tool's online price quotation with others, they show the total price with VAT included and one might be deceived into thinking the p/litre also includes VAT - IT DOES NOT!!
They are currently 2.8% more expensive than my local supplier.

Ineed. As I posted in the main oil thread, all the online brokers were more expensive than my main local supplier this week.

It is not automatically the case that online is cheaper for everything all the time.

MKerr_2

Just go direct to 'homefuels direct' its cheaper!! -

Cardew

whybelieve wrote: »

I was very nervous to pay for my oil through the website without knowing if this was a scam or not... but I have no complaints at all!

!

Apart from this thread seeming to attract a higher number of spam posts than normal, I would be very wary of paying any third party for goods unless I was absolutely certain that any money I paid them was 100% safe.


Also posts from someone who had apparently used FuelTool just once and felt compelled to state 'use fueltool every time' is not adding much to the thread.


I am obviously NOT implying there is anything suspect about this firm.

jonathannc

Having placed an order with Fuel Tool,they simply do not care one bit about customer care.

the online order agreement was 5 working days, pretty much like most others

generally i don't go the online route and after this will never again,

well the delivery date came and went, no one made contact, NOTHING ,,,ended up having to make contact to the oil supplier that fuel tool use, FUEL TOOL DO NOT ANSWER CALLS , rang for days on and off..

The oil supplier told me that my delivery will not be for another week at best, being an indirect customer ,means low priority,
Basically i could end up waiting 3 weeks for a delivery that should have been done inside 1 week.

so the lesson here is, go direct and not use fueltool, funny thing is, after doing a little digging I am not the only who feels like this after using them,

plenty of oil suppliers are more than happy to deal direct and will match or even beat these bandits.

sham63

Just had a very poor experience with fuel tool.

My order was for delivery within 4 working days. On day 5 I emailed the supplier as advised - no reply (copied fuel tool in as well)

Day 6 I emailed fuel tool customer services - no reply.

Oil finally delivered on day 7. The driver handed me the receipt and drove off. When I looked at the receipt it stated that 487 litres were delivered. I ordered and paid for 500.

So the delivery was late, I was ripped off on the volume and neither the supplier or fuel tool have had the courtesy to reply to my emails. I won't be using them again.

Ellesopia

I have been using comparison sites for many years as the prices have always been cheaper than local prices. However, contacting Fuel Tool is nightmare, last year I ordered 500 litre and paid the asking price, but the driver over delivered by 100 litres. The delivery firm (Oakley Fuels) called me direct asking me to pay for the extra 100 litres, which I declined as this was their error... if I order half dozen eggs from Tesco and they deliver a dozen I wouldn't expect to pay for the error so why should this be any difference... if I wanted 12 I would of asked and paid for 12! I called Fuel Tool to express my concern, but no response, their customer service is shocking.


Today's order was placed and accepted by (online) Fuel Tool but then I received an email stating the delivery firm had cancelled my order, when calling the delivery firm (Oakley Fuels) I was advised that the 100 litres delivered in error was to be paid in full before they would deliver fuel. I was also advised that when this error happens the client i.e. me always pays for the extra. My concern is not the money but the principle... and if they are doing this on a regular basis how much more money is this company making in error!

RobMac

I have used boiler juice before without issue and before that my local oil firm without issue. My local firm always were best for being prompt and great customer service but not the cheapest. Boiler juice were cheaper and delivered on time.
Then I found fueltool last year. First order was cheaper than boilerjuice and my local firm. All went through fine.
Second time was not so great. I know that on this occasion the supplier is the issue, but fueltool are the broker and should not have poor quality suppliers on their books. The supplier did not make contact within the 10 day delivery time frame and only sent out a lorry after I made an enquiry as to where my oil had gone. To their credit they replied quickly and sent a driver out the next day. The driver came, dumped a note in our post box and drove off. My wife was home and thought he had finished but was shocked to find a note to say our alley was full of dog poo and he refuses to deliver. To our dismay we found our cat had done 3 small poos we were unaware of (hardly covered in dog poo!). Someone was home and had he knocked we would have cleared up (we don't use the alley so had no idea). The usual drivers have never had any issues and always knock just to say hi and let us know everything was fine. I now have an overdue order and a firm that refuses to make any reasonable attempts to deliver. I have requested a refund and await a response. I am really concerned now about how that will go!
Overall my warning is that cheaper can mean problems. Personally I will go back to haggling with my local firm and pay an extra 2ppl rather than risk a poor service and not knowing if my delivery will take place and then fight to get my money back. The payment was taken 10 days before any fuel was delivered. Just beware that oil companies are not regulated and when using comparison sites they don't care about the quality of the firm's they use.
Hope this helps people make an informed decision .

RobMac

It took a month but I managed a refund. Turns out you should contact fueltool if you have any problems as soon as you get a problem. They got an instant response to the oil company and refund action with 30 minutes of my email. Their site does not exactly say they will offer the level of assistance I was given but it suggests you actually get more help than you would expect.

Volvo_Sugga

1. Read the T's&C's. Fuel Tool is NOT responsible, or liable, for performance or service of their suppliers.
2. You are forced to order and pay without being told who the supplier is.
3. Fuel Tool does NOT perform adequate due diligence before selecting suppliers.
4. In the event the supplier you have been assigned is bogus, takes your money but doesn't deliver, then guess what? Fuel Tool are not liable (because they didn't actually take the payment from you, the supplier did. Plus their T's&C's say they are not liable).
5. Be warned! ANYONE can create an Ltd company for £100, get a £2 a month website and call themself a fuel distributor. They can then register with Fuel Tool, bid and win business, take your money, waste your time, fail to deliver, give you a pack of lies as to why the delivery didn't happen, try and force you to accept a later date instead of giving you the refund you have requested, and make you wish you'd either phoned your local supplier and ordered from them, or just set your money on fire in the back garden!
6. The supplier name I was given for my order on FuelTool doesn't exist according to Companies House. There was no company number stated (I will come back to this). The address stated appears to be fake i.e. nothing to do with any company claiming to be a fuel distributor. It's grandious sounding, being located right next to an airport i.e. gives the impression that this so-called company is involved in supplying fuel to the airport. The payment was taken by a different company name, which does exist, but has a different address, has never submitted accounts to Companies House, because it is too new. I looked up this company, found out it is a one man band, and that the director who registered it has three companies with similar sounding names, but which differ from that stated by FuelTool. None is more than two years old. Obvioulsy my fuel wasn't delivered, and I ended up arguing on the phone with the sort of grotty sounding chav that I could imagine being chased down the road by Dom Littlewood and a camera crew on Rogue Traders.

The problem is, who do you issue the County Court Claim to? The company FuelTool stated as my supplier, doesn't exist! Where do you serve the legal proceedings? The address stated by FuelTool has no company with that name (or anything similar sounding).

A Ltd company is an artificial person, a legal entity entitled to own property, to sue and be sued. Each Ltd company has a unique company registration number, just like a person has a national insurance number. Just because two companies have similar sounding names, does NOT mean that they are in any way linked legally, just as if John Smith owes you money, you can't sue John Jones just because the name John is the same in both cases.

Who is my contract with? I literally have no idea! It's almost as if the chav who set up all these companies did this deliberately...

It's a sick joke, and in my opinion FuelTool should conduct proper due diligence and ensure that companies registering are bona fide, addresses are bona fide, that payment is taken by the actual company the order is issued to, and that the company number and VAT number are both included on the order details (so you can sue the right one when they don't deliver your fuel but have taken your money!).
6. According to the 2014 Consumer Contracts Regulations companies selling online are supposed to disclose their name, address and location BEFORE you are required to place an order. Because Fuel Tool do NOT show you who a supplier is and only show that AFTER you have placed your order and paid, I have no idea how their operating model can even be complying with those regulations. Whether there is some weasel worded way they can justify it, is irrelevant. IF they had displayed the so-called supplier before I placed my order I would NEVER have proceeded, because the address is 80 miles away! As soon as I saw the address the alarm bells started ringing. 3 calender weeks later (14 days in Fuel Tool's language i.e. business days), no oil, quelle surprise, and nothing but aggravation, hassle, stress, arguing and trying to get a refund.

I will NEVER use Fuel Tool again. I am absolutely disgusted and cannot believe how something as simple as ordering some heating oil has been turned into a bigger hassle than landing a man on the moon.

Get out of my life and never come back you horrible, incompetent waste of time, energy and money!

p.s. Because I was really low on oil after this debacle, I phoned my local supplier, a REAL company, with REAL employees and REAL tankers, on Wednesday morning and the fuel was delivered at 07:30 on Thursday morning! The icing on the cake is, it was 3 pence a litre CHEAPER than the price displayed on FuelTool on Wednesday (and theirs had a 4 day leadtime). NEVER. EVER. AGAIN!

Palaeo

My experience with Fueltool was appalling. The fuel I ordered failed to turn up. A second delivery date was promised, but still the order never arrived. Turned out that Fueltool had used some fly-by-night supplier called Evolution Fuels and had been having problems with them already. Evolution Fuels never responded to emails and Fueltool themselves were worse than useless. They initially responded to emails, but then just ignored them when things got harder. They really don't care; once they have your money they just hind behind the T&Cs which say they're not responsible for the bad suppliers they use. Fortunately, I'd paid with a Visa debit card and was able to raise a Visa chargeback with my bank and, although this took four months to complete, I eventually got my money back, but with no assistance whatsoever from Fueltool. I will never use them again.