SACRAMENTO (CBS13) Painting and detailing cars and motorcycles is in Dennis Hallet’s blood. He and his wife Sandra bought River City Auto Painting last March.

“I started it at 15-years-old in my dad’s garage,” says Dennis Hallet.

They invested in a Dell Computer for the business, and signed up with AT&T for the internet and phone service. But Sandra made a mistake while paying June bills.

“In thirty years I’ve never crossed up bills. I managed to send Dell my AT&T check and I sent AT&T my Dell check,” says Sandra.

Both companied cashed the checks.

“I don’t understand how they’re cashing checks that aren’t made out to them,” says Sandra.

Dell applied the $235.00 check made out to AT&T as a payment, and AT&T applied $1138.33 towards the Hallet’s phone bill, leaving them a credit of $903.33. Sandra first called Dell to straighten it out.

“As soon as I sent those copies I [was] sure Dell would take care of the interest fees,” Sandra explained.

Then she called AT&T to get her overpayment back to apply to Dell.

“His attitude was, ‘Oh, it’s your fault, you sent us the wrong check,’” says Sandra.

And when Sandra asked for her money back Sandra says, “We’ll get you your money back in two months.”

Sandra says AT&T told her they deducted July’s charges from the credit.

“That’s not even owed yet. I haven’t even gotten a bill yet and they’ve deducted it and they’re talking about taking August’s bill,” she said.

We spoke with AT&T’s corporate offices to find out how the check was cashed and why the Hallet’s can’t have their money sooner.

AT&T told us, “When a customer makes a mistake and submits the wrong amount of money the system recognizes the error and that bill is singled out….. We do have to wait to ensure that a check has cleared the bank.”

But AT&T didn’t explain why they cashed a check written out to another company.

AT&T called Sandra and apologized. They took out July’s payment, but promised a check in the mail for $643.75 within seven to ten days.

“Better, better, but I’d like to see them actually change the way they do things,” says Sandra.