When Making Up Fraud Becomes Fraud

My sister calls me panicking over the fact her heat is about to be shut off due to the fact she never paid her bill. She has just moved into her first apartment and doesn’t have the money at the moment, so I tell her she can use one of my credit cards to make the payment, and then just pay me back. She calls the heating company and they tell her that the credit card company stated it was a fraudulent charge.

I call my credit card company and they are just as confused, as they have no record of a fraudulent charge and haven’t spoken to anyone about it, either. I then call my sister again and relay the information that the payment went through on my end, so something is wrong with the heating company.

It turns out, they accidentally placed a credit on her account, realized the mistake, and withdrew the credit in addition to her payment so it looked like she still owed money. It was completely their fault, and instead of owning up to it, they made a false story about a fraudulent credit card charge to get another payment from her. My sister had a long talk with the supervisor afterward.