MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Management of a small business in the airport area is fired up after they say MLGW took thousands out of their account due to a billing issue.  Liz Bone, general manager of Memphis Auto Center, says she wants answers after MLGW charged her employer more than $21,000. "Show me how I owe you that much money and then I'll be more than happy not to argue with you about it," Bone said. She says the business owner, Glen Doane, received a cut-off notice from the utility company in early December claiming he owed more than $17,000.  MLGW electricity rates set to increase in the new year Liz says she found that suspicious since the company's bill is on autopay and has been for years.  Nonetheless, Doane says he agreed to be put on a payment plan and pay 25% of the $17,000, which ended up being around $4,300. The rest would be paid over 11 months. Receipts show Doane made the payment on Dec. 16, the same day he set up the payment plan.  However, on Jan. 2, they noticed a lump sum of money missing from their account.  "When we came in yesterday back from the holiday, they had taken out the entire $17,000 amount on 12/30 out of our account," Bone said. This means Doane was in the hole for $21,000. He says when he called MLGW, they blamed him.  "I said we set it up. I said is there something we didn't do? She said, 'Yeah you should've stopped the autopay.' Well, If I would've known I would have," he said. Doane says he was told they would not refund him the $17,000 until the end of the month. Bone says she did some digging into their finances and learned that MLGW only billed them once in 2024 and that was on Dec. 10 — just days before they received their cut-off notice. That amount was a little more than $2,000.  She says despite receiving only one bill, MLGW drafted more than $8,000 out of their bank account throughout 2024, and that does not include the payments taken out of their account in December.  So, how much energy were they using last year? Bone and Doane say they can't find that information anywhere. "We don't even know, like the amounts. I don't know what month it's paying for or anything because I don't have an invoice to attach it to. I have no clue," Bone said. They say as a small business, this is a huge blow to their pockets.  "I need proof. I want January through December. I want every single invoice with every single reading," Bone said. Is MLGW ready to handle cold, xAI expansion? Utility says yes. We reached out to MLGW for answers. Shortly after we reached out to MLGW, the business owner called us, saying MLGW told him they'd refund the $17,000 today.  We're still waiting for MLGW to respond to us about what went wrong.