Poor customer service + Little-known state regulations + Honest company = Big fat check?!

Our neighborhood was built on solid rock; my understanding is that our lot was a swampy part of a farm that was drained (60's and 70's-era wetlands management, bay-bee!), and what they found under the muck was solid rock, but anyways, that means we don't have a basement, and we aren't hooked up to city gas, so even though we live in Vermont's equivalent of a major metropolitan area, our house has a big tank of #2 fuel oil for heating and a smaller tank of propane for the oven and range -- the previous owners had a propane-fueled heating stove that they used as an alternative to the fuel oil-powered baseboard heat, but they really wanted to take the stove with them, so we actually use very little propane.

So, at some point not too long ago, our propane provider began charging us a rental fee for the tank**. More recently, they were bought by Amerigas, and changed our account number... after they had sent out the yearly bill for the tank rental, so of course they misfiled our payment -- it was accepted and cashed, they just didn't credit our account -- and after I called and they admitted their mistake and said they would straighten it out, of course they didn't, and that's when we looked for a replacement and found Patterson Fuels, who are awesome.

Amerigas was then supposed to pick up their crappy old tank and go away, but of course they didn't get around to it for nearly a month***.  They were crazy-makers, but we were done with them.  Or so we thought, until we received this letter:

This is the most hilariously unexpected correspondence we've ever received.  I've blacked out the amounts, but let's just say that given how little propane we use, all our cooking fuel needs and tank rental fees for the time we were Blue Flame / Amerigas customers were effectively free. 


** This was when we should have started shopping around for another fuel provider, but for some reason we didn't. 

*** and when they finally did pick it up, they filled up Patterson Fuels' tank, which is a big no-no.  We complained to them about it, but I still don't have the full story on how that ended