Oil delivery company demanding payment after violating terms of agreement

[jrjones]

I am on the board of a *very small* Nevada church. We had some concerns about the accuracy of the delivery of our heating oil and expressed our concerns to the company. They agreed orally and we confirmed in writing that they would not delivery unless a member of the congregation was present and signed off on the delivery ticket and agreed that if they violated this they would not charge us for the oil. Significant details were included about the contact information. They were supposed to acknowledge the letter and didn't. We called them and they confirmed they received the letter and indeed agreed. We confirmed that too in writing.

Subsequent to the phone conversation and first written letter, the oil company delivered the oil with no church member present nor did they advise us that they were going to deliver the oil. They demanded payment. They failed to respond to a phone call concerning the delivery. They called again and said they didn't care what was agreed to; they wanted payment for the delivered product. We agreed that they could withdraw oil up to the dollar value of the invoice. They declined and said that if they couldn't withdraw enough that we would be billed. We wrote to our local BBB and are awaiting a response. (It takes 30 days.) The same week we wrote to the BBB they sent us to collections. The collection company said they didn't care what was agreed to, they just want their money since we received product. The oil company by the way failed to respond to our last 2 letters before a complaint was filed with the BBB. How do we handle this now that it is in collections? Dollar amount of dispute is $440. Who is right?

 

[Michael Wechsler]

It's impossible to say without looking at all the writing and details personally. You need to send a written letter to the collections company disputing the validity of the debt. You may want to state that you have their property that they dumped, in clear violation of your agreement. You've always been willing to have them pick up what was not yours and was not ordered nor accepted. If you tell them you're willing to go to court, they may wish to settle.

However... my thought is that you probably want to work it out since you do have the oil. You can use the oil. The company is happy getting it's money. But you want to be sure that in any settlement of agreement that it is clear that there was no debt in dispute and you're getting a bill of sale. I'm not sure how this could be worked out but perhaps it's possible. My guess.... there is a LOT more going on here that I don't know about... good luck.

 

[jrjones]

Thanks for your comments. The Better Business Bureau had no luck in attempting to have the oil company discuss the issue with us. (They even said that they understood our frustration.) This really is a straight forward issue but $440 is hardly worth going to court expecially for a very small church. I did write to the collections company and disputed the validity of the debt and included the documentation. They have not responded in almost 2 weeks. The credit manager of the oil company does not believe that the 2 undisputed phone conversations and two undisputed confirming letters constitute any form of agreement. I disagree. Having spent a career in contracting for the government and having documented all aspects of this dispute with the oil company, including summarizing conversations, we are incredulous that they have failed to acknowledge the written agreement. Nothing was withheld from the summary above except identifying information of the specific parties involved.