Ferrerl Gas's Horrible treatment of a Customer

1. Happy news is what we all wish to hear and read about it seems like all we hear is the "bad stuff" anymore. Honestly, I wish I could be writing about on a positive note, but I am not. I need to voice my onion on a matter and I am hoping that by doing it here I will reach more people to make them informed as well.
It's Michigan and its cold is a well known fact, but to the Corporate office of Ferrell Gas, they don't care that last week they shut off my heat to my Michigan home.
I owed them money, I will admit that right up front, but I had been making payments and attempted several times to contact them regarding the payments I was making. I even contacted the local office in Millington and they sent my information to the corporate office.
I never heard a peep from Ferrell and the week of New Years, they came out to my house, without any notice and put a lock on my gas tank.
Like many busy families, I picked up my son from day care, went home and started up my gas stove to make dinner. Of course, the stove would not light. My husband arrived home and being our Mr. Fix It, looked into the matter. After checking the stove and the hot water tank he checked the tank and found a note on it. They had locked the tank and did not have the decency to let us know before hand.
My house was 63 degrees and getting colder and I had no hot water. We contacted the emergency number for Ferrell Gas and they told us there was nothing they could. I explained the situation and my attempts to contact them and they did not care. If I had not been paying anything nor attempted to reach them, I would not be writing this, today. But I had and they were not willing to work with us.
After begging and borrowing we contacted Ferrell Gas again. After initial contact info was provided, they hung up on us not once, but twice. Finally we reached an agent and payment arrangements were arranged. Except they charged us an extra 200.00 to have someone come out and take the lock off.
Not only did they not have the sensitivity to let us know about shutting off our heat they took advantage of us.
We try to do the right thing, but Ferrell gas did not see it that way, their treatment of us was horrible!
I wonder what the customer service people, we dealt with would feel like if it was their cold and hungry child sitting at their kitchen table. Sometime's Corporate America needs to remember not all of us, are as comfortable as they are.

its a hard situation to be in, for both parties. No you do not want to leave people cold, but you cannot expect to get heat without paying for it... May be time to switch to a company that offers monthly payments all year at a lower rate. I think they call it "keep full" but I'm not sure. I know when I was with Northwest propane before buying our own tank they offered it. But, we got our own tank for $500.00 and we now choose who fills it at the best price around. It is much cheaper in the long run but we also have to check the gas ourselves regularly. Because if we run out, its now our fault... I think there might be laws against shutting it off during winter in Michigan as well, might be something to research, but that also might only be for natural gas, unsure...

-Chris

Remember how nice people who owned business's in Fostoria used to be? Remember Mina's Country Store?