LUBBOCK, Texas — A Texas man checking to see if his tax refund had been posted to his online bank account received an unwelcome surprise.

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Instead of a refund, Mike Toombs, of Lubbock, noticed that his account was overdrawn -- by a lot.

Toombs said the City of Lubbock utility bill pending in his account exceeded $52,000, KLBK reported.

“I thought I’d been hacked!” Toombs told the television station. “All of a sudden, I see there is a negative $7,800 in my bank account.”

Toombs did not waste any time. He went straight to his bank and had a stop payment issued on the bill, KLBK reported.

“It just floored me,” Toombs said. “I thought, ‘How could they do this?’”

Toombs’ next course of action was to call the City of Lubbock. Officials asked if Toombs had left any water running.

“Even if I did have a leak, I couldn’t have leaked out $52,000 worth of water,” Toombs told KLBK.

City officials eventually conceded that the five-figure bill was most likely an accounting error and reissued the bill for its proper amount -- $226, the television station reported.

Toombs said his meter reading was also completely off.

“I still haven’t heard from them as to what the issue was whether it was the software or that of data entry somebody misread the meter,” said Toombs.

Officials from the City of Lubbock Utilities did not respond to a request for comment, KLBK reported.

Cox Media Group