Kettlewell Fuels Avis 4

Full and final payment was made on Friday 27th February, they took this immediately 500lts inc. VAT and delivery £341.78.

We received an email with stock letter dated 3rd March outlining 'price adjustments'. I called the company 8.10am on the 4th. I was advised this was the first they'd heard about this letter.

They made no further efforts to contact us until around 2.30pm (Friday 6th).

At this point they outlined options to accept the delivery at a much higher price, or cancel our order.

We are acting on behalf of my mother in this matter. She is an elderly women in her 80's on a state pension.

I believe they've breached our contract, and operating outside of UKIFDA's code of practice and customer charter.

We picked this up with UKIFDA, and they recommended we lodge a complaint with ADR Utilities.

We eventually got through on the phone on the 9th, they admitted they planned to deliver the oil at £1.40 per litre. Even though we'd made it clear in writing on several occasions we did not want it unless they honoured the original price.

They were bought by Northern Energy, who are owned by a nationwide firm NWF Fuels Ltd, who don't appear to care about the UKIFDA charter. Profit is their priority. Go elsewhere for your oil.

Ordered fuel on 24 February, told 7 day delivery and then given 6 March date. Later l realised that was 10 days so next day rang and querried it. I was told by a snarly woman l couldn't expect to jump the queue! I explained that in my original call l had said if the wait was too long l would look elsewhere for oil. She took that as me cancelling the order which l never asked her to do, 6 March arrived and no oil! Today took me over 3 hours to get through to them and told rather rudely l had cancelled the order which is totally untrue. Ringing elsewhere l have now had to pay more than double due to the war- not their fault but the cancellation without anything being said cost me over £400 more than when l placed the order.
Absolutely disgusted that they could cancel without actually saying they were cancelling and asking me to confirm it.
Used to be such a good reliable company but gone down the pan since it was taken over!

I have been using Kettlewell for 20+ years for oil for myself and two elderly neighbours, as they provided a dependable service.

Sadly, since being taken over by a national company that seems no longer the case. I ordered oil nearly three weeks ago and it still hasn’t arrived. I was told it would be yesterday but at 3.30pm was contacted to say that the driver had ‘run out of hours’. My neighbour, an elderly lady on her own, is nearly out of oil (we have very small tanks) and has no other means of heating or hot water.

It is sad when trusted local companies are bought out by national ones and no longer provide the service they once did.

We ordered a delivery of oil on 5th Jan. Kettlewell/Northern Energy said it could take up to 10 days. After 10 days it had not been delivered. We called and they said it would definitely arrive within the next 5 days. It didn’t. We called again and they said it may come in the next 5 days. so, by 26th Jan we still had no oil and no promise of a delivery date. As we were very low on oil by then, we had no option but to cancel the order and arrange an emergency delivery with another company. It is very disappointing that Kettlewell/Northern Energy could not keep to deadlines they had indicated for such an essential service.