He asked me where I got the letter, and I told him the utility company had shown me the authorization. His face changed immediately, and he asked whether they had given me the name of the person who signed it. I said yes, and he stopped eating. Then he admitted the name belonged to his sister, who had never worked for me but had been helping him with “some paperwork” since 2023. I asked why she had authority to change an account belonging to my business. He said she didn’t have authority, but he thought nobody would notice.
The next morning I called my accountant and asked for every utility payment going back to 2023. We discovered that the original account had been closed shortly after my husband opened a second account under a name I didn’t recognize. Payments from the laundromat were being transferred into that account before the utility bills were paid. Then my accountant found several other expenses routed through the same account. My husband had been using it to pay personal debts and family expenses while keeping the laundromat’s books balanced enough that I wouldn’t notice. The utility letter was the first document that connected the account directly to another person’s name.
I confronted him with the records that evening, and he finally admitted the account had been created because he was afraid I would discover how much money he had been taking from the business. I froze every account and hired an attorney to review the books. Within a month, we found nearly $60,000 in unexplained transfers over three years. My husband agreed to repay the money and sign over his access to the business completely. I kept the laundromat, changed every password, and hired someone else to handle the books. The water being shut off wasn’t the real problem—it was the first time the business showed me, in writing, where my husband’s secrets had been going.
