Marts Oil advertised very extensively back in the summer (when crude oil prices were sky high) their 'Price Protection Plan', which is essentially a price cap, ensuring that participating customers pay no more than the cap price. If the daily price is lower, you are guaranteed to pay the lower price. Marts bills this as their "daily variable rate". The implication is clearly that you will pay the lowest available price up to the cap price.
Marts charges a premium for this plan, which is based on reserving a specific number of gallons for the winter season. That all makes perfect sense and would be no issue at all, except...
Now that crude oil prices have fallen, Marts is again advertising a plan, billed as "taking the pain out of higher prices". The ads running now sound very much like the old Marts ads, and quote a per gallon price of as low as $2.099. That's what you will find billed on their website as "Today's Oil Price". However, when I called to confirm the price at which I would receive my next delivery of oil under the 'Price Protection Plan', I was told today's price was $2.799.
Sound odd? When I asked about the difference, and why I was paying so much more than what is being advertised as "Today's Oil Price", I was told that this is their "wholesale" price, which is part of a different program, and comes at an entirely different premium cost, over and above what I paid for the 'Price Protection Plan'. I pointed out that I felt this was at the very least deceptive, to see a price (the only price shown) on the Marts website that was not what I was paying, despite my plan's assurance that I would pay their "daily variable rate". I was told that they do not post the rate I pay on their website, and that I could sign up for the new plan if I liked, of course, paying the additional premium.
It seems obvious that Marts Oil simply invented a different way to charge customers a premium, while leading them to believe that they would be paying the lowest available rate for oil (up to a cap). Not the way I believe a good company should treat their customers.
Betrayed
Oilville
U.S.A.
0 comments