The dirty tricks used by some home heating oil operators to rip you off

Thinking of topping up your oil tank to cash in on cheap fuel? Oil prices plummeted over the winter but they have started to edge up again in advance of a crunch meeting of producers in Moscow on March 20.

With oil-based economies devastated by low prices, many are determined to drive them up again by cutting supply. Whether this is yet another attempt to talk up an oversupplied market or not remains to be seen.

But many people are topping up their heating oil tanks anyway on the off chance that prices will rise. If you’re one of them, you should be aware of some tricks used to rip you off by unscrupulous operators.

The vast majority, wherever they operate, are legitimate. But tougher policing of the dissident republican-dominated diesel laundering racket has driven some criminal elements into the domestic heating oil business in the Republic, according to a source.

That’s hardly surprising when they can make a €5,000 profit just by driving a lorry load of kerosene across the border.

To match the colour of legitimate oil here they may then colour it red using brick dye, which could cause long term damage to oil burners.

That’s just the tip of the dirty tricks iceberg according to one insider. The whistleblower, who didn’t wish to be named, runs a legitimate business and is frustrated by trying to compete with the tactics of unscrupulous operators.

‘I have been involved in many industries in my working life and to say that some of the alleged practices in the oil business are unbelievable is an understatement.’

Here are few things to watch out for:

The delivery hose holds 75-100 litres of oil, that has passed through and been clocked by the meter. If the hose is full when your delivery starts, this makes up for the hose-full left over at the end of your delivery – and clocked on your meter reading. But what if the hose is not full when your delivery starts? It’s easily emptied between deliveries into a truck’s waste tank leaving you short 75-100 litres of oil.

The quantity of oil you receive varies with temperature. That’s perfectly legitimate. For example, on a cold day you get slightly less and on a hot one slightly more because the oil will expand or contract back to the normal amount at an average temperature of 15 degrees. But it’s not hard to tamper with the internal thermometer to give you less than you pay for.

Meters may not be correctly calibrated. There is little monitoring or spot checking of delivery meter calibration, according to our source. Even when checks happen they can rely on certificates rather than physical proof.

There’s little the average consumer can do about all of this. Being present at the delivery would help – as would asking about the hose and temperature issues to show you are at least aware of them. This might deter fraud or convince a dodgy operator to give you an extra 100 litres he wasn’t intending to deliver before.

It’s very hard to tell if a hose is full or empty at the start of a delivery, but a delay between the pump starting and the oil actually flowing into the tank would be one indicator.

On the temperature issue, having the degree reading printed on your delivery docket would help show that calibration is correct. But most operators don’t do this.

‘Oil is an invisible product to the consumer on the day of purchase so they have no idea or mechanism to ensure the quality of what they receive or indeed, how much,’ says our source.

These issues – many of which affect motorists too – could be sorted out by a single regulator for this multi-billion euro business.

Yet, while there are many agencies with some responsibilities here – customs, Revenue, the Office of Fair Trading and the National Standards Authority of Ireland – there seems little coordination of their activities to stamp out rogue operators. And there’s no single authority to which consumers can complain if they are short-changed.

Given these alarming industry practices, maybe it’s time we created one.