A good deed or a mistake? true story

We bought our first house in early June. The seller of the house is known in the area for his extremely successful business customizing sports cars. He is also known to be a real hardass and kind of a dick.

At closing, the seller disclosed that the adjacent property (mostly woods, no house) was also his and being sold, but that he was still using a garage on the property and he had his security system hooked up to our electricity. He stated he would have it disconnected within the month. So we said OK and moved in.

As far as we know, it was still connected all summer. Our electric bill was quite high, but still within range of a normal bill so I wasn't sure if he was using our electric or not. We could see the line going out to his garage, and we could have shut him down, but we wanted to contact him first.

Last week my husband replaced our garage lights and in doing so had to disconnect the line to the other garage next door. A couple days before we did, we called and left a message at his business as a courtesy because we didn't want his sports cars (that's what we assumed was in the garage) in there with no security.

So then this morning I get an email stating that my electric bill is available and the amount due was $0.00.

When I looked at it, there was a $500.00 credit on the account on September 22, which paid this month and gives us enough credit for next month, too.

At first I thought it had to be a mistake, that someone else's payment credited to my account. But then I thoguht maybe the guy realized he had been taking electric from us for longer than he said and he felt bad so he paid it.

Is it possible to walk in and pay someone else's electric bill? I guess without an account number you could use a meter number?

If he did pay it is was very nice and I'm impressed. That would boost my faith in people. I'm going to get to the bottom of it and send him a thank you note if he did.

Last Edited by SaltWaterTaffy on 09/24/2010 11:52 AM