Skaggs Walsh Oil Heat Company Sucks

Here’s my experience dealing with the oil company, Skaggs Walsh and why I think this company sucks.

I have had a lousy year financially.  Due to the economy and how the rich have swindled all the hard working folks out in the real world, my business had less than a stellar year.  There were weeks, and months where I needed to use all of my resources, (meaning money) to purchase enough food to feed my family of four.  I had to find ways of stretching our food dollars so that we wouldn’t go too hungry.

I found what it was like to make food my number one priority for any money I could get my hands on.  This was a really bad year, and I never had to deal with such a poor level of financial hardship before.

During the previous fall I had arranged for Skaggs Walsh oil company to service my oil burner and to deliver my oil.  I thought that we had arranged for automatic deliveries and didn’t bother to continually check my fuel tank to make sure that I had enough oil to take care of my winter needs.

I soon got a rude awakening as I awoke one winter morning to a very cold house.  My oil burner had shut down, because I had run out of oil.  I had been living in my current house for over 20 years, and had never had something like that happen to me.  When I called my oil company, Skaggs Walsh, I was told that I was not on an automatic oil delivery.  How had that happened?  They had agreed to give me a service contract with no charge, they had agreed to send me oil at a special price, but had not arranged to send me automatic deliveries?  I was really surprised!  That didn’t seem right.  It didn’t make any sense for them or for me.  But OK.  They sent over a delivery and a service technician to start my burner, and things were running again.

Having to decide on whether to heat the house or feed the family should never be a choice that needs to be made for any working family in the US.  But the realities of the current financial situation and the economy for many American families makes choices like that real.  During the winter months, I once again ran out of oil.  This time it was because I didn’t have the money to pay off my oil bill, and Skaggs Walsh refused to deliver without getting paid the balance that I owed.  I don’t hold that against them at all.  That was fair, it just wasn’t something that I could afford to do immediately without some additional help.

I arranged to send the kids to spend some days with friends and family, while the house temperature dipped down into the 30’s.  It was the coldest weeks of the year.  I was able to borrow some money from a family member who took pity on me and my desperate situation.  I paid off my balance with Skaggs Walsh Oil Company, and got a delivery, and once again the service technician from Skaggs Walsh Oil Company came out to restart my burner.  Nice warm house once again.

Luckily we made it through the rest of the winter with that last delivery and I paid my oil bill whenever I had money that wasn’t earmarked for food and housing costs.  Sometime in the middle of the summer I had the opportunity to improve my business.  I recognized it as the opportunity that it was and started to immediately do better.  It was as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.  I started to buy more groceries and I was able to stop rationing food out to the family.

I started to pay down my Skaggs Walsh Oil company bill with larger monthly payments.  I was still a little shell shocked with how the previous year had been, so I held back on paying off the whole amount right away.  Once I had a few good months under my belt, I started to feel like things were turning around for me.

Even though I was still limited in my disposable funds, and my income was very dependent on the way that the economy would improve, I figured that I should be able to sustain a somewhat steady level of income in the near future.  I knew that Skaggs Walsh would not make a delivery without me paying off my balance and I wanted to stay with Skaggs Walsh because I do hold a level of loyalty with the people who seem to stand by me when I am experiencing bad times.  I do want to add that prior to this previous year I did enjoy a credit score of greater than 725, so I feel that I have never been a dead beat borrower.

So instead of looking around for the best deal I could get for the new heating season and trying to screw Skaggs Walsh Oil Company, I happily paid off my entire balance in one lump sum payment.  I was really proud to be able to do that and looked forward to continuing with working with Skaggs Walsh.

What transpired next really shocked me.  When I tried to arrange my delivery of oil I was told that the “nice” lady Lydia that I had dealt with, who seemed to be so understanding of my plight, would call me back.  She did call me back and I was able to finally speak with her a couple of days later to see about getting an oil delivery.  It was starting to get cold around here and the temperature in my house had dipped into the mid 50’s.

When I finally did speak with Lydia, she told me that my account with them had been canceled.  In order for me to get a delivery, they wanted me to put up a $600 deposit which they would keep all winter long in case I didn’t pay my oil bill.  Now I have to say, this really sucked!  I just spent over $300 so that I could get oil delivered to my house and that was a lot of money for me.  Even though my money situation was getting better, I still didn’t have $600 that I could pay upfront to an oil company for them to hold on deposit.  So I was shit out of luck.  Had I known that they canceled my account, I would have paid them $100 and used the extra $200 to put some oil in my tank so that I could bring my house temperature to a more comfortable 65 degrees from where it sat at 53 degrees.

So that is why I say that Skaggs Walsh Oil Company sucks!  They really don’t care about whether my family will be able to eat and have a somewhat warm place to live.  I’m not looking for charity, but they knew my situation.  I wasn’t taking their money and refusing to pay them.  I paid all their extra finance charges.  They got paid for my not paying on time!  What the fuck!  They are in business too.  They have the right to choose who to take on as customers, but they are also in the business of supplying something that is a life saving, and life threatening commodity.  If they can’t supply the necessary good will that being in that kind of position puts them, maybe they shouldn’t be in that kind of position.  Maybe the gov’t should get more involved with regulating oil deliveries.  Maybe they should not be able to drive around in their Mercedes Benz’.

And some of you might be saying they did the right thing.  So that is why I am writing this story of my plight with Skaggs Walsh Oil Company.  I don’t think they did the right thing, obviously.  I think they were only thinking of themselves and they left me without oil, without heat, and without a safety net of any kind for myself and my family.  So much for family run oil companies.  Maybe the government should take over the oil business totally and let these suckers drive around in Yugos instead of their luxury cars.