The Bottom Line: Suburban Propane

Mark Clayton of Brunswick says, he's had enough.

"When I came home from work, my wife said they delivered propane.  And she said, 'Guess what the price is?'  I said, you've got to be kidding me... is it over $3.00?  She said, 'No, that's way too low.'"

Their bill, from Suburban Propane, rang up at $4.45 a gallon.

Rocco Peters manages the community Malta Gardens, and says, he's seen enough.

He sent a list around to community members to find out which propane companies residents were with, and how much they were being charged.

Peters recalls, "So far, we've gotten about 25 people who've responded, and about 16 of them are with Suburban."

The amount they're paying? $4.49 a gallon.

And up in Queensbury, Florence Getter's new rate from Suburban blows the rest out of the water.

"In January, we got $5.58 a gallon," she says.  "This is outrageous, this is double what the market rate is."

One thing they all have in common?  They all turned to CBS6's Dori Marlin, to get to The Bottom Line on Suburban's pricing practices.

Dori found out that while these customer were being charged those high rates, NYSERDA reports the current statewide average for propane is $2.94 a gallon.  The Capital District average is $3.39 a gallon.  The North Country average is $3.24 a gallon.  And if you call Suburban's local competitors, most of them are charging less than $3.00 a gallon.

Complaints like these about Suburban's pricing are nothing new to the state Consumer Protection Board.

"They're expressed their disappointment or dissatisfaction with the price they were being charged," Executive Director Mindy Bockstein told Dori of the complaints.

But Bockstein also told Dori, there's only so much they -- or anyone else -- can do. 

The problem is that propane as a commodity isn't regulated; meaning legally, there's no way to control the prices.

"So pretty much anything is fair game when it comes to that pricing?" Dori asked Bockstein.

Bockstein answered, "It's an element of the market, it's marketplace activity."

It may be legal -- but that doesn't mean it's right.  So Dori tried getting in touch with Suburban, to hear their explanation about their pricing. 

The local office referred her to a national spokesperson, who offered only a statement saying in part, "Suburban Propane's price is very competitive with what other propane companies in the Albany area are charging their customers.  Suburban's pricing is comparable to the NYSERDA average.

That answer didn't seem good enough to Dori, so she hopped back on the phone once more with Suburban -- and even tried paying a visit to the local office -- but still, no further comment from the company.

Since Suburban didn't seem to want to budge on answering Dori's questions, she then decided to take them to state lawmakers.

Assemblyman Kevin Cahill heads up the Committee on Energy.  Dori asked him, "Is there anything that can be done, any legislation that can be introduced, that can keep something like this from happening?"

"Well, it's certainly something that's worthy of looking into," Assemblyman Cahill answered.

Dori asked, "How long could it potentially take for something like that to actually come up?"

"Well," he responded, "It depends on how much the people rise up, and make sure their representatives make this an issue."

Whether legislation would help regulate prices in the state, or simply offer more transparency, remains to be seen.

Dori also spoke with Assemblyman Tim Gordon of Bethlehem, who also sits on the Energy Committee, and says -- he's already received a couple complaints about Suburban into his office -- and that he would, indeed, help bring legislation to the floor if it gets to that point.

The Bottom Line on what you can do, until then?

Assemblyman Cahill stresses that if you are running into what he calls "gouging" -- report it to your local lawmakers, to the CPB, to the Attorney General's office -- so that if they receive enough complaints, action can be taken.

Also, if you try to contact the company, or the CPB to step in, most of the time the company will lower your rate at least a little bit.

And, one thing that all the officials stress -- shop around, to find the lowest price.