Woman pays for someone else's mistake - but whose?

By Scott Sexton
Winston-Salem Journal

Hien Tran pays her bills. She works for a bank and knows the importance of staying on top of financial matters.

So imagine her surprise when she learned last month that she had a $325 bill from Forsyth County EMS that came from a wreck in August 2000.

“It came to my aunt’s house. I don’t even live there anymore,” Tran said. “She called me and told me about it. I thought ‘This has to be a mistake. Someone’s stolen my identity or something.’”

It was a mistake, all right.

But it was not one of her making, an error that almost certainly won’t get rectified without an unnecessary (and protracted) hassle.

A $325 check dated June 5, 2001, payable to Forsyth EMS was indeed cut from the trust account of David Bartenfield, an attorney from Greensboro whom Tran hired to help with a mountain of insurance paperwork. The check was deposited into the account of an organization called the Forsyth County Rescue Squad.

Nevertheless, EMS grabbed Tran’s state tax refund and so far has refused to repay her.

“This is a mess, and she’s upset,” Bartenfield said. “I told her not to cry. This will be resolved. It might take seven more years. But in the meantime, she’s in the red over it.”