Louise leaned closer.
Megan continued.
“During conversion, that billing profile did not attach to physical unit 170.”
Ray frowned.
“What did it attach to?”
Megan looked at the paper.
“Account 3152.”
Tom repeated:
“3152?”
“Closed administrative record.”
Megan said.
“Not an active rental.”
“It looks like a temporary conversion placeholder.”
“The autopay token stayed attached to it.”
Ray’s face went pale.
Louise stared.
“I don’t understand.”
Megan turned toward her.
“Your bank has been sending the payments.”
“They reached Cedar Grove.”
“But after the software conversion, they were posted to the wrong internal account.”
Louise’s mouth opened.
“So I paid.”
“Yes.”
“Every month.”
“Yes.”
Tom looked at Ray.
“And unit 170?”
“Showed unpaid.”
Megan nodded.
“Starting three months ago.”
“Why only three months?”
Tom asked.
Megan flipped pages.
“Because until May, someone in accounting had been manually transferring the payment from 3152 to 170.”
“Then the transfers stopped.”
Ray stared.
“Who?”
Megan looked at another printout.
“Employee initials J.P.”
“Probably Julie Parker.”
“She left in May.”
Ray knew the name.
Julie had been the previous office administrator.
When she retired, no one had reviewed the manual corrections she had been making.
The software continued pulling money from Louise’s bank.
The facility continued receiving it.
But the money landed as a credit in the wrong internal account.
Unit 170 began showing unpaid.
Late fees accumulated automatically.
Delinquency notices generated.
The system followed its rules.
Nobody asked why an inactive account was receiving $126 every month.
Nobody asked why a tenant who had paid consistently for more than a decade suddenly stopped exactly when a manual accounting employee retired.
Nobody compared the money ledger with the physical-unit conversion file.
Until Tom asked.
Louise gripped the side of the golf cart.
“The notices.”
Megan looked at the account.
“There’s another problem.”
Ray closed his eyes.
“What now?”
“The contact record on 170 has an old email address.”
Louise frowned.
“Harold’s.”
Megan nodded.
“It bounced.”
“What about mailing address?”
Megan scrolled.
“Correct apartment address.”
Louise said:
“I received one letter.”
“Yesterday.”
“The final one.”
Megan examined the mailing log.
“The earlier letters appear to have been returned to the facility.”
“Address formatting problem.”
“Apartment number missing.”
Ray stared.
Megan continued.
“They were scanned as undeliverable.”
Tom turned slowly toward Ray.
“You knew notices were coming back?”
Ray’s face hardened defensively.
“I don’t review every returned envelope.”
Megan looked at him.
“Final lien review is supposed to include contact verification.”
Ray shot her a look.
She stopped.
Tom said:
“So automatic payer for years.”
“Three sudden missed months.”
“Facility still receiving identical payments.”
“Returned notices.”
“Door renumbered.”
“Account migrated.”
“And you cut the lock without checking the ledger.”
Ray snapped:
“I followed what the system showed me.”
Tom pointed at the open unit.
“And the system was wrong.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Louise looked at him.
“I told you.”