Thats.... weird. They think you were someone else? Someone else pin some crap on you or something? You eat his dog?
That's...fucking weird.
He paid it which is good, but you should probably make sure it's cancelled now if it's still in your name.
Story time! :D
We had some issues with things when I lived there. The guy was super depressed as his wife had left him just as I moved in, so he spent most of his time drunk lying on the sofa in the living room for a while. The living room was unusable for a few months because it was a trash heap and stank of drunk person.
Which was fine, we understood he was a mess.
But then he stopped paying bills with the money we were giving him, running up arrears, and just failing to manage the property. So I had to take charge and sort all the bills, get our money back, etc... which we managed to do in the end.
He and the other housemate also never cleaned or tidied. Ever. I confronted them about it and they said they'd shape up. The next time we spoke about it they bandied together and said I was just as responsible (I'd been tidying up after them for months). At that point I put my hands in the air and said do what you want.
One time the guy had guests, he wasn't there but they stayed for two days. He had left the room in a horrible state, and the kitchen was disgusting as I refused to clean after them any more. They cleaned the living room themselves as that's where they were staying.I told them this was all his and the other person's mess, and they said they had thought we were trashing his house and that it had been such a lovely family home before. I assured them it was nothing to do with me but I don't think they believed me. They were family friends so quite sure they reported what they thought to them.
After the bill issues I moved all bills into my name so I could handle them, in hindsight this was stupid knowing how poorly the other two managed things. The other roommate bailed on her last bill, leaving me with £400 of her debt.
When I left the property I sent the father (the actual owner, the son was managing the property and living there) an email about all of this and requested help with the girl's debt she had bailed on etc... he sent me a dismissive email back saying "I don't trust your word with these bills, it all seems very suspect to me. Also the house is in a horrible state now and we have to fix that.". I couldn't even be bothered to try to convince him.
Luckily they had not requested a deposit.
Despite all of this I remained on good terms with the guy. This must have been because at least he knew he was responsible for much of the above mess and was aware how much I had done to attempt to fix it all. He was always polite.
A few months ago I got a water bill in my name at their property. I hadn't been there for 6 months at this point. It was for £500, unpaid, and I noticed it was on one of my credit scores. I called the guy and he didn't answer, sent him a text and he apologized, paid it right away, and said he'd do whatever he could to help. I have no idea how that came to be in my name though.
Then yesterday the events detailed in my previous post happened.
So yes, there was much precedent here for weird behavior, but I was shocked by his response and action as I do tend to have a lot of faith in people (bad habit). I will need to contact him again as I need to remove these default payments from my credit score (the second time this has happened with them now, that place is a curse), and I will need info from him. So that will be fun...
There's a moral in here somewhere.
