We moved into a new house in June. The previous owner had used Superior propane as the heating fuel supplier. As part of the sale, we took over the tank rental and purchased the value of the full tank of propane.
After living in the house for a couple of weeks, other companies had caught wind of new owners and started dropping off flyers stating the cost of their propane etc. I was new to propane and just assumed Superior was competitive since they are so well known, not the case. The last fill was at a cost of $0.87 / litre with approximately an additional $20 on the bill for Haz Mat and delivery fees. The first company that stopped by to advertise their fuel price was $0.58 / liter and not Haz Mat or delivery fee, also the tank rental was free compared to the $75/year with Superior.
I called Superior, spoke to someone in the sales department and at their request summarized all the information in a fax and sent it to them. They were confident they could match the deal and were surprised how much more they cost. After two weeks had passed, I had no response from Superior to my fax so I called back and went through the same explanation all over again much to the surprise of this person as well. It was at this point I decided that I had extended enough courtesy to Superior and chose to drop them in favour of the new vendor (Stinson Fuels, Ottawa Ontario). It is now August.
I made the request to close the account and have the tank picked up from my property. Over the next three months I made 5 calls to Superior, each time being given a date for the pick up of the tank that was not met. Finally at the end of October I threatened to put a 4x8 sign on my lawn explaining to my neighbours the differences between Superior's price and the other company. They picked the tank up the next day.
In mid November I called Superior and asked them when I could expect credit for the the fuel in the tank and the amount of the credit. I expected credit for the contents of the tank as well as the balance of the tank rental that was paid a in advance. The refund for fuel was not a problem but there was no way in their minds that they could refund me for the tank because I had not paid for it. It was paid in January by the previous owners, which I had compensated them as part of the fees on closing of the house sale. After attempting to apply logic to the person on the phone I gave up because it was only for half of the $75 and not worth my time at this point.
I got the cheque in the mail the first week of December but it was short about $118 dollars. This turned out to be the amount of the final fill to the previous owners before the sale. Superior was unable to collect this from them because they did not get a forwarding address. My exasperation was already through the roof at this point so I did not pursue it any further but I let them know I would share this story with any Superior customer or potential new customer I can find.
There are approximately 200 new houses being built in a subdivision down the road from my house. They will be heated with propane, but not by Superior if I can help it.
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