In July, my elderly mother called and ordered four cords of dry, cut and split firewood to be delivered to her home. On July 29, her firewood was delivered and she complained that it did not look like four cords of wood. She was rudely told that the seller was “state-certified and knew what he was doing.” She paid the $700 he demanded with a check.

My brother was later able to stack and measure the wood and found it to be more than a cord short. He called the Paris-area seller and was told the same thing as my mother: “I am state-certified, and I know what I am doing, and I will not discuss it further.”

We contacted the Maine Forest Service, which forwarded the call on to the Quality Assurance Division of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources. A representative came to my mother’s house and, indeed, my mother was more than one cord short of what she had requested and paid for.

Anybody who thinks that they have not received the firewood they’ve ordered should call the Department of Agriculture, QA Division.

How can someone cheat people trying to heat their homes in our cold winters at these prices and sleep at night, especially the elderly who have limited incomes they try to cope with?

I hope that all others will call immediately. Let’s stop this travesty.

Wilma J. Rector, Upton