Kansas City customer says she unknowingly paid another T-Mobile user’s bill for two years
A Kansas City woman says she spent more than two years unknowingly paying another person's T-Mobile bill and only received full reimbursement after KMBC 9 Investigates started asking questions.
"It felt like a betrayal between T-Mobile and me," Leslie Levin told KMBC 9 Investigates.
The discovery started with a single statement.
"But I got a statement on March 3," Levin said. "It was from T-Mobile... in the name of a man named James Jackson, whom I've never heard of."
Levin says the charges were tied to an older bank account she rarely used. She says T-Mobile had been withdrawing about $170 a month through autopay.
When she called the company, she said she learned something shocking.
"They acknowledged that, in fact, I had, quote, two accounts," Levin said. "One in my name and one in James Jackson's name that I was paying for."
According to Levin, the payments dated back to January 2024.
Twenty-five payments.
More than $4,000.
"I've been with T-Mobile for 22 years, so there's a trust factor there," she said.
Levin said she spent weeks trying to figure out how her account allegedly ended up paying another customer's bill.
"I probably contacted them a total... maybe 10 times in the course of a month," she said. "I really never got anywhere except to frustrate myself."
Levin says T-Mobile eventually acknowledged an error but initially refunded only part of the money.
"They said the other 10 payments are the responsibility of the customer... basically, of me," Levin said.
That response left her stunned.
"My feeling about that was it doesn't matter at what time I caught the error," she said. "What matters is that it's not your money. It wasn't your money then, and it's not your money now."
KMBC 9 Investigates contacted T-Mobile multiple times over two weeks, repeatedly asking:
- How a customer could unknowingly pay another person's bill for more than two years
- Why Levin was not initially fully reimbursed
- What safeguards exist to prevent this type of billing error
In one response to KMBC 9 Investigates, T-Mobile wrote:
"This should not have happened, and we're very sorry for Ms. Levin's experience."
The company also described the situation as:
"A rare and hard-to-detect scenario."
And added:
"This billing error is not a common occurrence."
However, despite repeated questions from KMBC 9 Investigates, T-Mobile declined to explain exactly how the billing error happened.
"We don't share the details of our internal operations," the company wrote in the email.
The Better Business Bureau says billing complaints involving telecom companies remain common.
"We have had more than 4,000 complaints over the past three years involving billing and billing-related disputes," said Josh Planos with the BBB.
Still, Planos says this case stands out.
"This is not a normal experience," he said. "That's incredibly concerning that there are not safeguards in place."
After KMBC 9 started pressing T-Mobile with questions, Levin says the company's response quickly changed.
"Within 24 hours, all of a sudden, upper management from T-Mobile calls me and wants to talk, wants to apologize, wants to make it right," she said.
Levin says T-Mobile eventually returned the remaining money.
Still, she says the experience permanently changed the way she views autopay and monthly billing statements.
"I was naive, and I'm not anymore," she said.
T-Mobile told KMBC 9 Investigates it has since addressed the issue internally "to prevent it from happening again."
The Better Business Bureau recommends consumers review bank and credit card statements every billing cycle, especially for autopay accounts, and report unauthorized charges immediately.
Top Picks
A dog's customized pink wheelchair worth $800 was stolen. An organization stepped in to replace it
Scammers are impersonating MyChart. Here’s how to spot them
'Liquid concrete': Why living downstream from a glacier has become a deadly liability
