STAY AWAY FROM CLEAR RIVER FUEL, their customer service is HORRENDOUS! We'd been with them for 10+…read moreyears until today (Jan 2), when they "threw us under the bus", *willfully* leaving us without heat during a bitterly cold spell. We've always been on auto-delivery/auto-pay so I don't pay much attention to the tank level. But on Sunday morning 12/31, I noticed it was nearly empty (the previous delivery was only 3/4 of a tank for some reason, so that may have messed up their estimate for when we'd need fuel).
Clear River's website boasts "7/24 Service Availability", their Facebook page lists their Hours as "Always Open", and a Google search showed their Sunday hours as 8 AM to 5 PM, so I called that morning and left a message stating that we were going to run out of oil before the next day and needed a delivery immediately (the outgoing message stated they were "busy assisting other customers"). When we didn't get a response by early afternoon, I sent a Facebook message AND an email. No response so I called and left another message at 4:45 PM. By that time it was dark and below 0 degrees out, and since it was New Year's Eve, every other oil place we called was either closed or wouldn't deliver to us since we weren't already customers.
Our only option was to go out and buy gas cans, fill them with diesel fuel, drive them home, lug them to the back of the house and try our best to pour the diesel into the oil fill spout (not as easy as it sounds in -3 degree weather!). We had to make multiple trips to the gas station, and ended up covered in diesel fuel and nearly frostbitten!
The next day, Monday 1/1, we heard nothing from Clear River and were again unable to find another company to deliver, so had to go through the whole ordeal again.
In the meantime, our bathroom pipes froze (first time ever) because we had to keep the heat so low to make sure we didn't run out of oil.
At 7:30 Monday evening, we finally got a call from Clear River offering to deliver the next morning. I said we weren't even sure we wanted to continue as their customers after the way they'd left us to freeze and that I wanted to speak with the owner, Dan, first to see how he planned to make the situation right. Later that night, we decided that whether we opted to stay with Clear River or not, we still needed oil ASAP, and it might take a day or two to arrange for another company to deliver. So I called and left a message stating that yes, we did want a delivery on Tuesday, and to please have Dan call us.
Tuesday morning, while dealing with the plumber and the frozen pipes, Clear River called to tell us that (per Dan, the owner) they would not be delivering oil that day -- or ever -- as they no longer wanted us as a customer! Boom!
Dan obviously knew full well that we'd have a very hard time finding a company to deliver to us today or even this week as new customers, due to the extreme cold and high demand for oil. But unconscionably, after 10+ years of us being loyal customers -- we always paid up front, and put up with numerous screw-ups on their part like repeatedly trampling our plants/bushes, and often filling our tank late in the spring after we'd asked to be taken off auto-delivery until the fall -- Dan literally and *vindictively* threw us out in the cold.
Fortunately for us, a friend recommended Viking Oil in West Hartford, and they were able to reroute a driver right away -- within *30 minutes of calling*, we had a full tank of oil -- at a better price than Clear River's! We could hardly believe it! Thank you Viking!
So to recap:
Clear River = horrible service + nasty owner who screws over loyal customers; Viking Oil = Outstanding service + great prices + Our Heroes!
