Cota & Cota Inc

*DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES TRUST THIS COMPANY.* They entered my house without permission and fraudulently billed me over $400 for an emergency after-hours service call that I NEVER REQUESTED. Reader, there was no emergency and they never even had the courtesy to call to check if there was or to request permission to ENTER MY HOME, at night, without my knowledge. This is absolute insanity - my house is in a quiet wooded area and the thought that I could have been there alone and men just showed up at my door at night, uninvited and unannounced, is frankly terrifying. I've been a customer for 10 years for my vacation home in Jamaica, but Cota & Cota has now completely betrayed my trust. Having stored my door lock code in their files after a prior (legitimate) service visit, they just let themselves in, did god knows what (again, THERE WAS NO EMERGENCY), and then sent me a $400+ bill. That is completely unacceptable, a grievous betrayal of trust and, by the way, illegal. Cota & Cota's excuse for why they did this isn't any better either - after being an auto-delivery propane customer for about 10 years, without any notice to me, Cota switched my account to COD, meaning I'd have to call them to request delivery. I had no idea, SINCE THEY DIDN'T INFORM ME OF THIS ILLEGAL CHANGE TO MY ACCOUNT (yes, that's illegal under VT law too), and then they didn't make a propane delivery to my house for 11 months. Well according to Cota, they just spontaneously realized one day that they hadn't made a delivery in a while and probably should have, so they decided that my tank must be empty, our heat must be off, and it was February so my pipes could freeze! They realized that would be 100% their fault, since they had illegally switched my account from auto-delivery to COD, but instead of calling to CHECK if there was a problem with the heat, they ran right over to my house at night, illegally entered my home and then billed me for an "emergency" after hours "call" that I NEVER REQUESTED OR AUTHORIZED. I wasn't there at the time (thank god), but I have a webcam in the house which shows a digital reading of the internal temperature in the house and could easily have let them know if there was a problem (there wasn't). Mind you, I only got this version of the story after about 6 calls to Cota to sort out the billing issue for the "emergency after-hours call". I was blatantly lied to by three different people before being transferred to Jason Terry, the manager, who then told me the "truth" (which I highly doubt is actually the truth). I won't even get into the very shady delivery of propane that they subsequently made, in which they had struck out the metered price on the delivery ticket and manually increased it by over 50 cents per gallon, but that certainly looks very suspicious to me too and we have reason to believe that the number of gallons billed were not actually delivered. Consider yourself warned, especially if you are an owner of a vacation home in their service area. We have to trust local service people when we can't be there, but Cota & Cota has proven that they do not deserve that trust and should be avoided.

They call when it is time for maintenance. We just bought the house and they were servicing the house before we bought it and we tried them out and liked what they did so we are continuing with them.

I would not be using them if they didn't earn A's. I keep using them because they are very responsive when I call and request a service. They alert me when it's time for my service call for the boiler. They are punctual. They get the job done and get out of here kinda thing. They are very competent at what they do.

unknown

Excellent. For the annual furnace service, I did not speak with anyone, it just happened. for the call to report a problem, they came right out and fixed the problem.

They show up regularly without my having to call and ably perform an inspection and service of my furnace. Likewise for keeping my heating oil and propane tanks full all year, regardless of the weather. They are friendly and capable and I am glad that they are my service providers.

The technician was over an hour late from the scheduled time and did not call to let me know. I called the company and they dispatcher quickly called back with his time of arrival and apologized for the delay. I received a follow-up call to ensure he had arrived. The actual service took allot longer than expected because the technician had difficulty with removing a fitting from the fuel tank. However, along the way he took the time to explain the extra noise and time it was taking. He showed me the problem and explained the options for a success path. When he completed the service and repair he walked me through what had been done. The technician was respectful, hard working, very professional and apologized for not calling when he was running late (he had forgot his cell phone). I am happy to be a new customer and would not hesitate to call Cota again. My only small negative was that multiple trips from his truck to the basement through the bulkhead which resulted in some extra floor cleaning when he left. Not a big deal...next time I will be ready with a walk off mat or something. Great service.