Suburban Propane

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In 2008 when I purchased my home, we switch from Foust Fuels to McCraken Propane, now Surburban Propane. We did this because a family member worked for McCracken and we were able to save a lot of money by being on thier family program. In order to switch, McCracken gave Foust a 500 gallon tank, so they 'traded' tanks, which is common practice among gas companies. In 2014, Suburban's gas prices skyrocketed to $3.59/gallon while our local gas (Foust) was $2.19. We tried for months to get a better price with no luck. We then had planned to go back to Foust, however, Suburban/McCracken refuse to trade tanks. They are asking $600 to have the tank removed, which wasn't even theirs to begin with. Foust has even offered to dig up the tank for them at no charge, but Suburban wants to charge a $125 come and get fee. We, along with Foust, have been asking to trade tanks for 3 months and they simply refuse to do it. They would rather the tank just sit there empty if I had Foust deliver a tank to put above ground. In addition to all of this, Ken Little, the apparent regional manager, has refused to call us even though we have called him on a daily basis. This screams negligence and he knows he's in the wrong which is why he doesn't want to talk to us. This is poor business practice. We had scheduled Foust to come out and dig the tank up, however the tank sits under a fence and the fence has to be removed. During Christmas week we were running very low on gas because we wanted to empty the tank for removal. Suburban dragged their feet and basically forced us to buy gas from them again. When they agreed to match the Foust price, we were almost out of gas. We asked for 200 gallon delivery ASAP, and they again dragged their feet until we were just about empty. We had to call and demand several times for them to deliver gas while we had family visiting. Internet searches show similiar experiences with this company. They are not allow us to switch companies. UPDATE: After contacting the Better Business Bureau, WRAL TV and ABC TV, writing complaints on Facebook, Twitter and here on Angie's List, this horrible company agreed to sell me the take, which I bought. Now I can go with any gas company. They told the BBB that their 'business' decision is to not trade tanks, which really screws anyone who wishes to try and switch gas companies.

They showed up and made the fill at an inflated price, which wasn't in itself the end of the world. But then since they've got you on the payment plan, they keep showing up when you don't need a fill yet (I tried calling and asking them not to, to no avail; it's a "benefit of the payment plan" and they refuse to either skip a delivery or do a partial fill) and for *these* visits, they ramp the price up drastically, so that suddenly you're being charged over $200 a month, and it quickly gets difficult to dig back out of it. After I paid them off in a lump sum so I could just do fills when I needed them and ask for a partial fill if I wanted to, the service rep I talked to tried to tell me they couldn't do that, until I pointed out that I'd been told I could do it once I got off their payment plan, and I was off it now, so I expected to be able to, and she just said "okay" and went ahead with it. There's a lot at this company that is mutable or adjusted depending on whether someone makes a stink or what they think you'll put up with. In mid-January 2014 we were having an unusually cold winter in NC, and I saw headlines about the propane shortage and how some NC consumers had reported prices as high as $3.55 a gallon, which struck me as interesting because clearly my bill at $3.61/gal was outside even that number. Then in summertime (when propane prices are lowest), I called to ask for the current price and order a fill. I was told that my price* would be $4.22/gal! *There's never "the price" --there's *your* price, based on their estimation (how long you've been a customer, whether your tank is above or below grade, etc.) of how statistically likely you are to be willing to go to the trouble and pay the tank removal fees to cut ties with them and take your business elsewhere. These folks have loads of complaints online about this type of progressive, parasitic gouging of their "valued customers," and though a common theme is that if you complain about the price they'll lower it a little bit (but still considerably overpriced compared to other providers) and that if you threaten to leave, they'll lower the price to something just a little bit over what other companies in the area are charging, but I don't want to do business with a company like this and I'm getting rid of them. If I could give them lower than an F rating, I would.

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still have no fill up. am down to 8% and have been calling for 4 days.

They were easy to work with and were flexible.

The service is spotty and they have had billing problems in the past. I usually prefer monthly bills, but they mess that up every now and then. The local office is good with straightening things out for me. The ladies there are kind. The delivery men are also efficient.