We got a statement in the mail from the company we order our diesel from. The statement date is 12/9. I checked back through our records and I show that we paid this on 11/2! I would be alarmed, but I'm not really because this isn't the first time this has happened. The owner of this business seems to have a touch of Alzheimer's - some days he knows exactly who you are, and other days he has to ask. I think his son works in the business too, and for the life of me, I don't understand why the son doesn't try to take over the finances. I mean, I do understand that if his dad has always been the boss, he can't just take over, but it's scary to think what a mess they could be in. The check has cleared already, but they show that we still owe?!

Earlier this year, they sent a statement with some amount on it that wasn't anything we'd ordered and the name on it looked like a cross between my hubby and his brother who lives about 5 miles from us. I asked when I stopped by the office one day what it was and the dad didn't have anything to match the statement showing we owed money so I just threw it out.

Last year, we had a statement they sent us for a delivery we didn't remember getting. They only deliver when we request it, but since the statement came at the end of the summer for a delivery back in the midst of hay season a few months earlier when things were crazy, we couldn't be sure that we DIDN'T order it and the driver left a ticket somewhere that we didn't find. We remembered and paid for the delivery both before & after that one. I questioned the driver and he showed me his notebook where he records deliveries and it had us listed on that date with other farms in the same area, so that more or less confirmed that it must have been us. It was an ugly $2500 surprise though, so ever since we've been very careful to keep track.

Unfortunately for them, these poor business practices are going to lead us to order from anyother company in the future. I'm not knocking them for the forgotten bill that was apparently our fault (although we're not 100% convinced), but for the other issues. We sometimes have to call more than once to get a delivery, and never know if they were just slow and hadn't gotten around to it, or if the request vanished into thin air before it was written down anywhere. Very sad.