General Utilities

My family has been a customer for over 25 years and your prices are \r without a doubt the highest of anyone in the business. When asked to be locked into a price we are ignored. This is no way yo treat a longtime customer or any customer for that matter. We recently paid 4.64 a gallon and prior was 4.74 per gallon while competition were as low as 3.64 per gallon. Thats quite a difference. Is there something special about your oil? I'm leaving General and plan to make my feelings known to your upper management.Shame on you people for robbing your long time customers. Wake up people and save 1.00 per gallon with another oil company. Be treated the way your supposed to be treated as a customer.\r more

General Utilities billed me $271 for a new transformer and labor saying it is not covered and that this was a storm related event. Apparently, they feel they can bully customers into paying this saying the transformer blew the generator. What actually happened was the blow off valve sprayed water all over the burner and transformer thereby shorting it out. The mechanic installed a 30inch extension pipe onto the valve to prevent this from happening again. He made no mention of this and submitted the ticket anyway. Unfortunately, i have no recourse other than to cancel my contract.\r more

I have contract with this company for more than four years 24/7 all parts and labor included. During the Hurricane storm Sandy my boiler stop working.They sent the heating guy.He looked at and left to come back with a part next day.Boiler did work overnight and stopped .An other heating guy came and called the company the part my boiler needed.The company called me next day that you need new boiler.Give us $5560.00 and we will install a new boiler for you.They left me and my my kids in the cold for 10 days despite the fact that they had a legal obligation to install the parts.I called another heating guy.He replaced the gas valve and boiler was up and running in 45 minutes.General Utilities did not want to buy part that cost $284.00.Instead they wanted me spend $5560.00 for the new boiler that cost only$1900.00.\r What is crook company. more

General Utilities keeps on over-filling my oil tank and the oil goes into my garden. They keep saying they have no way of knowing when my tank is full. I told them the gauge that indicates full is very visable from area they are standing to refill the tank. They give me many silly answers thinking that a senior is stupit. I have complained to the oil company and they deny that they overfill, even though I showed them where the extra oil spilled. The last time they filled my tank they thought they would be clever and they twisted the extended pipe upward so the extra oil wouldn't leak into my garden. They were wrong, the excess oil was near the tank and dripping into my blueberry shrub. What a nightmare. more

I have been with this company since they bought out Benit. They have done the same thing with the pricing as these other people have complained about. No one will address me on the phone. I get a blow off every time I call and am told the ""Price negotiating Dept. will contact me."" I have called everyday for three days and I get the same line. I used to call every May to lock in my price with the previous company so I continued to do that for a few years because everytime I called no one seemed to know what they were doing. Then I was told I didn't need to do that as they always give their long term customers the best price. Are they kidding me ...I just got a delivery @ 365.9 a gal.!!! Now I can't get anyone to talk to me. I bet if I claimed to be a new person looking to sign up they would talk to me. I do not like their business practices. I find them shady and they do not handle problems on the phone. I even had trouble months ago getting an appointment for the burner cleaning. It seems they just pass the buck on the phone. I get a different story from everyone I talk to no matter what or why I call. Stay away and save yourself time, money and aggravation because this company serverly lackes business integrity. I oonly put one star because this wouldn't publish without a rating...I would give them a big fat ZERO. more

They couldn't be worse, offer or more useless worse customer service, be slower or care less. They charge top of the line prices for bottom of the line service. Go anywhere else. more

I just paid over a hundred dollars for a contract to fix any repairs if needed. The first problem that i had now they want to bill me $750 dollars to fix it. Something with the coil in the oil burner. does anyone know if this should be included or has anyone actually seen their contract???? more

The two oil pricing plans, General's ""Flex Price Option"" and the ""Cap Price Plan"", may well have been designed by the Mob (Hmmmmm?). The Flex Price shifts, as the customer service person graciously explains, with market conditions. Your first delivery price will be a low ball and satisfying. Then they've got you. What Flex Price really means -- and you signed the contract that says so -- is that General can charge you what ever they want. Trust me, you will be charged more than any other L.I. company charges for the rest of your contract. The Cap Price locks in a maximum price for the duration of the contract. It will be carefully explained that this is protection -- no matter how high the market reaches this Cap Price is your max. It also will be the price you are charged for ALL ensuing deliveries. Careful. Delivery tickets are designed to cloud the details. You'll clearly see a bottom line price for your delivery but how it's figured will be difficult to determine. Pros: They have trucks and oil Cons: Nothing else! more

You can't commend a company for doing their job by delivering what you paid for in the first place. That is what they are supposed to do. God help you if you decide to terminate your contract and shop around for cheaper oil. I had paid them the remainder of the previous year's balance as agreed. After sending in the obligatory certified letter to terminate (not auto-renew) the contract, they had continued to send me balanced billing receipts and got no confirmation that my account had been cancelled. I had to go through mediation through both the State Dept of Consumer Affairs and the Better Business Bureau to acknowledge that my account was indeed terminated and that by balance was paid in full, because I could not get it in writing from them although I sent a numerous amount of emails requesting that information in writing. After they acknowledged to both the State Department and BBB that they had terminated my account and I had owned them no money, I had closed my complaint. A couple of months later I got a call from a collection agency regarding $600 that I allegedly owe them regarding an oil delivery they claimed to have delivered which I don't know anything about. I had to fax in the proof to the collection agency that they had indeed acknowledged that they had terminated my account with the zero balance and now I opened a case with the state and the BBB again. If this is their standard practice it will be quite likely that you will go through the same experience if you try to break from this company. Good luck Cons: horrible customer service, seedy billing practices. more

Yes, they deliver the oil on time, when you call them when your boiler stops they respond very quick to be honest. When you make prompt payment they make a small discount to you, but you have to follow up this yourself with their poor customer service. I had service contract with them, 10 days before the contract ends my boiler stopped working, called them and they fixed it quickly, then they charged me like $100-150 for the service, I had to fight with them for weeks on the phone, they transfer you to somebody, that somebody to another dept etc. and "surprisingly" you get disconnected, after 5 attempts with same result I'm sure that's the way they work in such disputes. I faxed them letters, and finally got a manager and he fixed the problem after spending hrs. They played the same trick to another friend of mine, he didn't have time to fight, didn't pay $100 and they gave it to a collection agency without any prior notification right away. I switched to a bigger co in Long Island thi more

Avoid at all costs! Zero stars would be too many for these people. Nasty ii really an understatement when used to describe them. I disagreed with a bill - paid for the oil portion and requested an itemized statement so we could resolve the disagreement - the women was rude - nasty and threatening - stated if I didn't pay the bill she would send it to collections. I again requested an itemized bill - before the closing date of the statement I was receiving calls from a collection agency. Small minded nasty staff are usually a reflection of like minded management.\r \r Save yourself the hassle and go elsewhere. Cons: nasty staff more

When it comes to filling your tank or getting service they're quick. However they have a terrible customer service, and they never miss a tiny opportunity to overcharge you. Even you cancel the contract they keep on filling your tank and charging you x2 of the regular rate, if you can get somebody from customer service you may try to fight with them, they'll transfer you 5-6 times and the call will drop. If you insist on not paying, because it's unfair & you can't find anybody to solve your problem, they'll give your case to a collection agency and you gotta deal with them !! They played this game to 2 different people I know.. Pros: Quick service Cons: Terrible customer service & playing tricks more

General has a very poor customer service. Poor communication with their customers. We were passed to different "supervisors" regarding our concerns just o be told that they would call us back, but we never got a call. No response at all when we mailed our concern. We had to terminate our contract and they were still doing oil delivery. Beware, they will give you a hard time if you switch to another oil company. more

After being with this company for over 20 years, the changes are unbelievable. For the first time last year I signed a contract for $4.699 a gallon fixed rate. That should have been my first clue that something wasn't right. I've had contracts with a capped price, but never a fixed price. Suddenly, a month later, the oil prices tumble to below $3 and then continued to decrease. General did not offer to lower the contract price and after my budget was up having paid $5170, they billed me an additonal $431. On top of that, after sending them a letter telling them I did not want to renew my contract and would only pay for the additional 65.2 gal. left on my contract, they filled my tank with 189.2 gal. and billed me at the contract rate for the entire amount. When I called, the man I spoke with was belligerent, nasty and very unprofessional.He said that the additional 124 gal. would be charged at the current rate. Let's see if I get a new bill to that effect. In short, I'm done with this company forever. I wouldn't recommend them to my worst enemy. Pros: Nothing Cons: greedy, unethical, unprofessional more

If i could give this zero stars I would. A friend of mine recommended me to General Utilities, so I met with a representative and after being offered a competitive price, I chose to sign a contract with them.. Consumers beware, the price that I was given, and had a signed contract for, never once showed up on my delivery ticket. I had to constantly call the office in order for them to adjust my delivery, and that was an impossible task in itself. Getting through to a live person on their phone system is almost impossible. So all winter after every delivery I sat on the phone for 30-40 minutes waiting for a representative to take my call, so that they could fix the mistakes that they were making. This wait is not only for billing questions, I waited that long to have some one answer the phone when I needed service as well. Then when I refised to pay my bill until it was adjusted to my contracted price, they had their credit department call my house every day until it was paid. It seems their credit department is able to make phone calls but the customer service department was not able to. One girl actually told me that there was nothing she could do about the wait and that I should write a letter to the owner telling them that they needed more employees. If this company offered me free oil for the next year, I still wouldn't do business with them. I warn all consumers, if you choose to sign with this company, make sure you have everything in writing, because the seem to ""lose"" alot of peoples paperwork, or they make up their own dates, so if you don't have a signed pricing agreement, they tell you in so little words that you don't have a leg to stand on. Pros: nothing Cons: everything else. more

I would recommend General Utilities to others. Great home/business oil delivery service. Prompt and efficient. Friendly staff when calls need to be made. Prices are average and competitive with other companies. more

I have been using General Utilities since I converted from oil heat to gas heat. I have a yearly service contract with them. When I have a problem their service is prompt and their technicians know what to do to get my heating plant back on line. Their prices are good also. more