Someone helps a relative out with a utility bill by charging it to?
Utilities are charged after the utilities are consumed. The occupant with the relative presumably enjoyed the electricity, water, gas or internet/cable over the month before the breakup and decided or agreed to pay the bill for that utility as part of the relationship with the significant other. The utility charge was fair. The relative stepped up to help out. Payment was sent by an authorized process. It would be fraud to claim fraud in this interaction with the utility. Suppose relative had paid cash at a customer service counter run by the utility. My cable company keeps one. I think my water company does, too. Relative cannot go back to the counter a day or two later and demand money back. To assert the charge was unauthorized is absolutely false. To assert that the services invoiced were not delivered or failed to meet implied warranty would be false. The utility did its job. Rather, the question proposes fraud that will cost the utility charges from the credit card company for the attempted reversal. No. Maybe the details are that the payment was made as a commitment going forward, that there was an implied future welcome and promise of a place to stay for the next month. But that is a matter of tort law between the two who were a couple. The utility does not have any role or obligation here. If the relative had paid by check as a condition of an explicit contract between the paying relative and the significant other that required the partner to have a place to stay, then being kicked out would be evidence of breach of contract, indeed, no intent by the SO to honor the contract. On that basis, the relative might have paid their bank for a stop payment. The utility would then pass its charges for the returned payment back to the SO, their customer. Neither the contract between the relative and SO, nor the terms in the credit card agreement allowing a stop seem to exist. I think this gets filed under lessons learned and stories about horrible exes.