Boilerjuice Poor Service

Carriage_Girl

Any one else having problems with poor service and lack of communications.  I ordered and paid for a 1000 litres of heating oil on 02/12/2022 for express delivery.  Payment taken, order confirmation received that stated my order would be delivered on or before 09/12/2022.  At always, I also requested phone or text confirmation on when the order would be delivered.  Order failed to turn up.  Tried contacting Boilerjuice and Certas Energy West, the supplier - no luck.  No response from on-line Customer Service either, despite informing them that I was out of oil, therefore no heating or cooking facilities (I live in a rural area and rely on oil for both).  Today, I eventually managed to speak to a human (I was a bit crafty and rang their sales team, strangely enough got through almost immediately).  Again, I gave all the details and was told someone would contact me and my order would be updated.  They also thought it would be best to cancel existing order and put in another one for express delivery, which was at a much higher price!

Eventually, I had no option to ring round other suppliers and get an order that I have promised will be delivered tomorrow, although this is costing me more.

I cancelled the order by Boilerjuice and have requested a full refund and no fees to be deducted as I consider this obtaining money under false pretences as they are at fault.

propertyrental

Ahhhh! Boilerjuice.....!

Ebe_Scrooge

Carriage_Girl said:

Eventually, I had no option to ring round other suppliers and get an order that I have promised will be delivered tomorrow, although this is costing me more.

Do you not always ring round suppliers whenever you need oil?  I have always found BoilerJuice to be way more expensive than any of my local suppliers - I filled up about a month ago, and BJ were 30ppl more expensive than the best quote I got elsewhere!  And that was for standard delivery, express delivery was even more.

Jaybee_16

Bought 1000 litres a few weeks ago via Boiler Juice as they were 12p per litre cheaper than the local supplier I used in the past.

Ebe_Scrooge

Jaybee_16 said:

Bought 1000 litres a few weeks ago via Boiler Juice as they were 12p per litre cheaper than the local supplier I used in the past.

That's a good result for you

As a slight aside, it's always worth ringing round several suppliers.  The cheapest supplier one time will very often not be the cheapest the next time you order - and many of them will price-match a quote you've had from a different supplier.  I've got about 8 suppliers that I use, and it's very rarely that I end up buying from the same one twice in a row.

Weave

I've had problems with Boiler Juice where an order never arrived and no communication. I eventually spoke to a human being and they did resolve it and I got the delivery about 4 days later.

In my opinion Certas are the worst, they missed the delivery deadline for one order and then proved impossible to get hold of on the phone. I ended up having to pay another service to deliver 500 litres urgently and then the Certas order was received 2 days later. We had run out of oil so were a bit stuck but thankfully have a very large tank.

Certas now own HeatingOil.co.uk and HomeFuelsDirect.co.uk as well as their own Certas branded websites so you do not always realise it is Certas you are ordering from.

I now keep a closer eye on my oil level and order with plenty of time. If I did get it wrong again I would now order from a local supplier via phone rather than a broker like Boiler Juice as I would be more confident they will do what they say.

As for Boiler Juice prices, I have found them to be less competitive over the last 3 months or so. Maybe they have got enough people using their 'Connected' automated ordering service they no longer need to try so hard to compete?

Kiran

I've had mixed service from them. Relatively new to the world of oil heating, only been the last 3 years or so. In that time I've had decent service at the lowest price, but also terrible service, deliveries that didn't turn up within their window and boiler juice constantly telling me lies that it was coming out today. In the end they just gave me the phone number of the supplier and told me to call them. They didn't care as they had my money and were happy to be taking orders from their own regular customers. I now on principle use them as my last resort, I have 2 local companies that I will try first. Also, in an emergency I wouldn't trust their urgent delivery service, that is a bit of a joke. We've, through our own inexperience managed to run out of oil before, rather than pay for an entire load at a premium thar is debatable if it will turn up on time, I just collect 60L which tides us over until a standard 10 day can arrive from anyone else

mark_cycling00

I seriously doubt that BoilerJuice employs staff to write misleading emails to customers, and all the staff keep this a secret 

Just accept that if you order oil from company-X via BoilerJuice then the updates you get will much slower and probably batched over-night than if you bought directly from company-X. Someone at company-X may forget to send the spreadsheet over to BoilerJuice etc etc

It seems to me that when demand is low, then companies provide a low price to BoilerJuice because this will shift some stock. When demand is high they don't need to use BoilerJuice but provide a higher price because if you do sell at this price you'll make more cash. 

When everyone was holding off buying oil, BoilerJuice was 10p cheaper than the brands, after the cold-spell Certas-owned brands are 10p a litre cheaper than boilerjuice.

I checked the September trading statement for Certas and they make 1.8p operating profit per litre. 1.6p last year.
It looks like BoilerJuice made a **huge** loss. 

thedon

I have similar problem with BoilerJuice (albeit not been waiting as long) order placed on 9/12 supposed to have been delivered 23/12 - they emailed after 5pm on 22nd to say it was delayed :-( 
The revised date of 31st Dec then sailed past with no delivery or communication.

I've finally managed to get through to the BJ phoneline today, and they have apologised profusely, they thought messages had been sent on the 31st.  Unfortunately they have been let down by two suppliers Watsons and Certas - it seems in turn both operators have had missed deliveries to them.  

Whilst I could cancel, I now have to pay a premium of more than £100 to get a 48 hr quick delivery from elsewhere.  so I've placed a small 500ltr order with a local supplier which should be here by the end of the week, and will continue to eek out what oil I've got left buy limiting the central heating time (using electric portable heaters) and the electric immersion for hot water as we've had to do since Christmas Eve.

To cancel my order means having to get my money back from Watsons - apparently they have already been paid (I though BJ held the money until the oil had been delivered).  Boiler Juice will do this for me - but they are optimistic that Watsons will catch up on deliveries soon, so I'll leave it and hope both my orders arrive soon!

To echo the others advice above - I have a short list of local suppliers, and tend to use BoilerJuice first, then ring the local guys, or use their web quote systems and just go with the cheapest.  I don't tend to find them price matching anymore so just go directly with the cheapest - there's no reward for loyalty. 
Although obviously this hasn't worked so well for me this time where BJ were the cheapest :-(

integrity_matters

I share the frustration of ordering heating oil through BoilerJuice. Having placed and paid for an oil order on 13.1.24 for delivery 'on or before 19.1.24', the date passed without delivery. I subsequently received texts confirming BoilerJuice delivery dates of 22nd and 24th Jan, Ist, 5th, 7th and 8th February 2024. Twenty-one days after the first order was due, seven confirmed deliveries had failed to materialise. I rang BoilerJuice Customer Services countless times and requested the matter be escalated to a Manager as a complaint - that process takes up to 48 hours (no callback 48 hours later). Eventually, I had to turn the boiler off and cancel the order - should've done it weeks ago but I was stuck in a loop of receiving and trusting in delivery confirmations which didn't subsequently happen. I also spent many hours of pointless BoilerJuice telephone/email chasing and believing reassurances. I was astounded when BoilerJuice customer services told me the only way to get a current order prioritised is to run out of oil and submit a photo of the tank to prove it. I was equally surprised to learn that I was wrong in thinking that as BoilerJuice had processed the transaction and taken my money, my Contract was with them. It turns out that at the point of sale, the Contract moves to the Supplier who, and this isn't at all helpful, BoilerJuice customer services can't talk to. Equally, the Supplier deflects customer enquiry orders back to BoilerJuice Customer Services due to GDPR compliance. So, if you have a problem with your oil delivery, you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. BoilerJuice has been an appalling customer service experience as well as being costly (I've had to pay an emergency delivery fee on a replacement order and it stings that BoilerJuice will likely have earned interest on my money).

dunstonh

I was equally surprised to learn that I was wrong in thinking that as BoilerJuice had processed the transaction and taken my money, my Contract was with them.

Boilerjuice is just an intermediary that sits between you and a range of suppliers.    
e.g.   Suppliers tell Boilerjuice their prices and Boilerjuice adds their margin on top and shows the cheapest.   Boilerjuice has no control over the deliveries.  That is down to the local company used.   Usually you find it is a company that you could have dealt with directly.

In theory the system should work well and could be cheaper at times but if the delivery company lets you down then it does tend to fall apart.