SAN ANTONIO — Michael Carraway started working at Anthem School of Music in February of 2023. He worked all the way to October of the same year.
Carraway was getting ready to move so he put in his two-week notice in September. Then the school's owner, Nathaniel Villareal, asked him to work another two more weeks to take care of their students.
The owner said Carraway would get paid on the second of the next month as usual. But this time, the check didn't show up.
“He became MIA after that,” Carraway said. “I kept calling him and leaving him text messages and he just was not responding at all.”
Eventually, the music teacher took Villareal to small claims court. A constable served Villareal papers and a court date was set in March of 2024. Villareal didn’t show up and Carraway received a default judgment for $640 plus court costs.
Carraway then found out the county doesn't actually collect that judgement directly and he would need to file more paperwork, and pay more money, if he wanted to confiscate money or property.
Instead, Carraway called KENS 5.
“I watch KENS 5 all the time so you guys seemed like a good approach to take," he said.
KENS 5 then contacted Anthem School of Music and owner Nathaniel Villareal gave us his side of the story.
Villareal said they disagreed with Carraway's last bill of $640 and only wanted to pay $386. Villareal also claimed he communicated with Carraway that he wanted to solve dispute through arbitration. He claimed they tried to communicate with Carraway and he later blocked them.
KENS 5 had already seen the text messages Carraway sent Villareal asking for his paycheck and KENS 5 did not observe any reply texts about arbitration. Villareal said they must have been deleted.
KENS 5 also asked Villareal why he didn't show up to court with that information. Villareal just said they ultimately decided not fight the matter in court.
Carraway later told KENS 5 he had never heard anything about arbitration.
Regardless, once KENS 5 contacted the music school, Villareal then wired the money to Carraway the very next day to take care of the issue.
Carraway had his $640 plus money for court costs by the next week.
"He said he'd pay part of it, maybe $500 and said he would pay the rest of it on Monday. He then paid $250 on Monday," Carraway said.
Carraway said the money would help him pay some extra bills as they made final preparations to move and sell their home. He's glad he called KENS 5.
"The bottom line is that we were able to pay bills and KENS 5 was the reason we could do that," Carraway said. "I want to say thank you to KENS 5 for helping us resolve this thing."
If you have a problem like this, we want to help you fix it! In our series, Call KENS, we do our best to solve problems for our viewers. The number to call is 210-470-KENS, or fill out this form.
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