Payment requested for unsolicited heating oil delivery

I suspect that the driver is not also the owner of the delivery company?
And that maybe his boss was sceptical about his tale of "wrong address", maybe suspecting said driver had put the €35 worth in his own tank?

I reckon a letter from you saying you'll accept the unwelcome intrusion & ongoing hassle for the princely sum of €35 & offer to call it quits, will be enough to satisfy the boss & you'll hear no more.
 
Lads, get a grip. We have turned into a nation of scalpers, and it is not nice when you are being scalped. The guy made a mistake, offer him €20, not because he might get pissed off & come after you, but because you got €35 worth of oil. Try being a more decent human being, you will sleep better for it.
 
Lads, get a grip. We have turned into a nation of scalpers, and it is not nice when you are being scalped. The guy made a mistake, offer him €20, not because he might get pissed off & come after you, but because you got €35 worth of oil. Try being a more decent human being, you will sleep better for it
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But how do you know that the 35e worth of oil was actually put in? there are chancers out there, and was alluded to, how do you not know that the driver took the 35e worth of oil himself. very hard to tell from looking at a tank how much oil is in it.
How many posts are on that "beware of being scammed" thread?
 
€35 is a piddly sum for the oil company to get worried about. Ring them up, explain why you wish not to pay and it should be easy to sort amicably.
 
BlueSpud said:
Lads, get a grip. We have turned into a nation of scalpers, and it is not nice when you are being scalped. The guy made a mistake, offer him €20, not because he might get pissed off & come after you, but because you got €35 worth of oil. Try being a more decent human being, you will sleep better for it.
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Your attitude is outrageous...what has this situation got to do with being "a more decent human being"?! I'm amazed at some people's attitude in this thread...some idiot delivers something you don't want yet you should pay for it?

Don't pay them a cent...I'd even be annoyed at having the hassle of ringing these people to get it sorted out.
 
Bluespud, if I drove up to your house, painted the front of it and asked for €500, saying it was an accident, I got the wrong road, would you give me €400, being the decent human being you are??

The sum is so paltry that the company are incredibly taking the p**s asking for it. And the principle is the same for the situation described above. Would you pay for a dinner in a restaurant that you didn't order?
 
Trish2006 said:
Bluespud, if I drove up to your house, painted the front of it and asked for €500, saying it was an accident, I got the wrong road, would you give me €400, being the decent human being you are??

The sum is so paltry that the company are incredibly taking the p**s asking for it. And the principle is the same for the situation described above. Would you pay for a dinner in a restaurant that you didn't order?
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Use better analogies, you cant return a paint job & it would depend on whether i ate the dinner. If someone delivered by mistake a €35 item which I could use, I would either ask them to collect it or offer them what I believe it would be worth to me. I certainly would not try & stiff them for the item. That would be stealing!
 
KalEl said:
Don't pay them a cent...I'd even be annoyed at having the hassle of ringing these people to get it sorted out.
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I am curious as to where you would draw the line?

If the bank accidently put €35 in your account, would you tell them & then return it.

If the bank accidently put €3500 in your account, would you tell them & then return it.

In your opinion, would it be stealing?
 
Letting the bank take the money back is exactly the same as what people are suggesting here, tell them they can take the oil back which is very possible. Noone has suggested that they shouldn't be allowed to remove the oil.
If the bank told you that they want the money back in the form of €35 worth of oil would you accomodate? So for the oil company to say they want their oil back in the form of money...
Just because it's 'only' €35 is irrelevant. If they put in €500 worth should you pay up??
As you asked, where do you draw the line??
And if the house painting analogy isn't to your liking then substitute the local garden centre planting €500 worth of plants. Would you tell them they can come and take them back or be happy enough to pay for their mistake.
 
BlueSpud said:
I am curious as to where you would draw the line?

If the bank accidently put €35 in your account, would you tell them & then return it.

If the bank accidently put €3500 in your account, would you tell them & then return it.

In your opinion, would it be stealing?
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Eh, the bank puts €35 euro into your account and then takes it out.
In this case €35 of oil was put into the OP's tank. This was unsolicited...you could even argue they trespassed. Now they are invoicing for a product/service which was not ordered and cannot easily be returned.
I worry about the sanity of anyone who suggests paying this oil company.
 
I must be making my point badly. I am not suggesting that they must pay the €35, I am suggesting that they at least give the oil company the option to remove the oil. If the oil company said no, they want the €35 (and not the oil), then I would draw the line.

With the plants, the garden center would be welcome to their plants back, but if I liked them, but was not prepared to pay 500, but would be prepared to pay 250, the the garden center would have a choice.
 
Re: Payment requested for unsolicited goods?

pat127 said:
In my opinion it's a poor state of affairs when some poor unfortunate driver makes a simple mistake and the company is expected (or maybe he is) to take the loss. To suggest they take their own oil back is plain silly but I assume that's some sort of joke. What if the shoe was on the other foot, if you were the driver, how would you feel? I agree entirely that if the wrong oil was added then that changes the situation entirely and I'd expect the company to sort the issue out but otherwise why not just pay for the oil anyway? You'd have been buying more sooner or later....
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I think it was this post which set the ball rolling really...ridiculous stuff.

Given the amounts these companies deal with, invoicing the OP for €35 is laughable. The whole incident should be forgotten and no action taken.
Syphoning the oil out, negotiating a settlement figure or paying the €35 would be ruled out by most rational people.
 
Re: Payment requested for unsolicited goods?

KalEl said:
Given the amounts these companies deal with, invoicing the OP for €35 is laughable. The whole incident should be forgotten and no action taken.
Syphoning the oil out, negotiating a settlement figure or paying the €35 would be ruled out by most rational people.
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Exactly why the option of explaining the mistake and offering them the oil back is the sensible approach to take.

Presumably someone in the oil company will realise the idiocy of the situation of even looking for the amount "owed", decide the cost of retrieving it makes no sense and will close the whole thing.

Just doing nothing will probably keep the invoices (and ultimately the baliffs) coming. Believe me, stranger things have happened.
 
It's interesting some people's views on this situation.

In the end, I told the advice here and sent the company a letter stating that I would not be paying and to remove the sum from the records.
Haven't heard anything since, so hopefully commonsense has prevailed and that the company realised that it would not be worth the effort to recover the oil (or the money) and that the matter is now closed.
Thanks all for your thoughts and help (even the ones I don't agree with!)
 
While we are on this subject. Does anyone calculate the amount on the meter reading x the price. Our delivery man charged €6 over and then the company refused to refund it when I phoned them up, they said they would take it of the next bill.
If he does this at every delivery he his making a few Euros a day.
 
Old Jim said:
An oil truck pulled up outside our house and proceeded to fill our tank with oil. There was none ordered. By the time the mistake was realised and stopped the driver, he had €35 of oil added to the tank.
The oil company have now sent a bill for this €35.
Is it fair to expect payment for this?
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Most of these oil companies now have computerised accounting systems, so its my guess that the invoice went out automatically having not had any human intervention (some trucks even have data loggers which means the ball is rolling immediately - in this case the driver HAD to record the delivery).
All it would take is a phonecall to the oil company, have them hit a keyboard a few times , and bingo, problem solved - "no charge / driver error" !!!
 
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