I would not recommend this company for your heating oil in Portland because I don't think their service is on par with the amount of money they receive from their customers.
I'm renting a house and the landlord didn't shut off his Irving Energy heating oil account when I moved in, so they continued delivering every month automatically. It took a few months for me to figure out this was happening. I kept checking the fuel gauge expecting to need to order oil, but it didn't appear to move. I figured the house was strangely efficient (despite being drafty as f). I was wrong about that.
One day I was at home and happened to catch an Irving truck filling up my tank. A few days later I received a bill from the landlord. I called Irving, paid the bill---this went on a couple more months. The landlord would send a bill and I'd call Irving and pay it. One month I got a huge bill over $1000; it had been sub zero degrees out a lot of days. Since the bill was enormous it took a couple weeks to come up with the cash. I called it in. I think it might have been a few days past the due date, not sure, since Irving wouldn't give me invoices (or tell me when they were coming).
The month after the huge bill we ran out of oil. I came home in the evening and the house was absolutely freezing. I had to put the kids in the car to warm them up. Irving had apparently decided to stop automatically delivering to my house.
I don't know whether the landlord shut off the oil account without telling me, or whether Irving was furious about the bill being a week or two late and dumped us, but no one notified me from either end and I wasn't in the habit of checking the gauge anymore. So I had to find emergency fuel oil that night and pay an extra fee for delivery.
I understand why Irving would not want late payments on a credit account. And if the landlord decided to turn off a utility and failed to notify me, that was a dick move and not Irving's fault.
But if Irving wants new accounts, probably the best way to attract them is *not* to let someone simply run out of fuel without notice. Irving could have left a note on the door with that final delivery, or they could have mailed a flyer out once the landlord's account was closed. I definitely would've signed up for an account with them. I'd have appreciated the notice so we could've avoided that bad night. This would have secured me as a loyal customer.
I'm paying 500-1000 bucks per month to heat this place and that money could be going to Irving. But yeah, no. read more
