Saveway Petroleum inc

I had used this oil company for several years and they could never seem to get the billing between my rental properties and my home separate and were always brusque and officious with me, plus maintenance contracts never seemed to cover what needed to be done. However, these were relatively minor incidents compared to what happened on Friday the 13th this year. I had a telephone call when I was on a business trip to tell me (at least they phoned) that when filling the oil tank in a house that I had told them was vacant, a tank they admit was on automatic fill-up, they discovered that the tank seemed to be empty. They did not mention that water was pouring out of the walls of the upstairs bathroom. I telephoned my contractor and my insurance and a long process of turning off the water from the burst pipes, cleaning up the damage, demolition and reconstruction of the catastrophic damage to a historic house began. For two weeks, I could not reach the owner of Saveway Petroleum and they would not tell me the name of their insurance. My insurance's adjuster and engineer concluded the fault was entirely that of the oil company's not filling the tank. I was told that the owner of the oil company was in Puerto Rico and could not be disturbed. Finally, after his return from his vacation, I was given the name of an insurance company in Houston (please recall that the insurance capital of the country is in Hartford Connecticut and that there are very few cases of frozen pipes in Texas). The insurance company strung me along for another couple of months, sending their adjuster all the way from Houston, and finally wrote to me to say that they would not honour the claim because the motor had gone off due to a staple in a wire to the motor, a motor that Saveway had subsequently replace. Of course, no one can explain why the staple had not caused a problem before, or why the oil tank was empty. I am now borrowing from every source to get the at least $30,000 worth of damage repaired so that I can rent the house again, as this is the peak rental season, at the end of the school year, and Saveway knew that the house was vacant and therefore needed extra surveillance to ensure that the tank was adequately filled during a very cold winter. On my lawyer's advice, I stopped paying Saveway for the last oil delivery, and wrote to them asking for a refund of my maintenance contract and for the harassing telephone calls asking for payment to desist. I pointed out that the relatively small amount that I owe them can be deducted from the settlement they owe me for the destruction to my house. On their bill, they are now charging me late fees and court fees and going after me with a collections agency. I now have to pay a lawyer to try to get a settlement for the enormous cost of repairing the damage to my house and I hope I can get it rented very soon before this small local oil company completely destroys my property, my credit and my financial security.