A driveway snow clearing company in Ottawa is coming under fire from some customers who say they feel ripped off. They claim the company, Ace of Blades, doesn't show up for days after snowfalls and that the company is hard to contact.

Bob and Barbara Erlandson say they want their money back from Ace of Blades, but that they haven't been able to contact the company. (CBC News) The Better Business Bureau has a consumer alert on the company and had assigned it an F rating as of January 2015.

Last September, Bob and Barbara Erlandson paid $378 to Ace of Blades, a decision they say they now regret.

"I'd like my money back. I can rehire a new company, preferably the one that does the rest of the neighbourhood, who shows up on time or within a reasonable amount of time," Bob Erlandson said.

After Saturday's snowfall, neighbours who hired other companies had their driveways cleared quickly, the couple said.

But the Erlandsons told the CBC's Simon Gardner that it took Ace of Blades until Tuesday to show up at their house, and that the plow operator told them he'd been hired the night before.

Ace of Blades had an F rating on the Better Business Bureau's website as of January 2015. (CBC News) "So my husband went to the Better Business Bureau and started reading. And he said, 'We've been had,'" Barbara Erlandson said.

The Ottawa branch of the Better Business Bureau has been receiving complaints about Ace of Blades since 2013. A dozen new complaints alone have come in since the new year.

The CEO of Ace of Blades, Grant Van Den Heuvel, said this week's service problems were caused by street closures from Enbridge gas leaks.

"This is happening all over central Ottawa and affected about 30 streets[,] maybe 60 customers max out of the 1000 we service," he wrote in a text message to CBC.

The City of Ottawa and Enbridge told CBC they were not aware of any road closures over the weekend.

Ven Den Heuvel also told CBC customers shouldn't sign up the night before a storm and expect service six hours later. He also said the Better Business Bureau complaints make up less than one per cent of Ace of Blades's 85,000 customers in Canada, and that most have been resolved.

The Better Business Bureau, meanwhile, advises anyone hiring a snow removal company to do some research online before handing over money.