That's 100% what happened.
Some one had been doing store variants and selling them on places like the CGC boards. I can't remember what his name was, I'm sure its not hard to find.
But apparently this is what happened,
Person A started doing some store variants and piggy backed off of person B. Person B had a diamond account and a store, Person A did not. Person A put together a variant cover and gave all of the diamond information to DC comics and the books were printed and delivered to the store. Person B didn't know anything about the variant and was surprised to get the books in the mail and a bill for the books. Person A apparently ghosted person B once the books were delivered. Person B was some how able to return the books to Diamond.
This is how I remember it happening.