T-Mobile Surprise Porn Not An Isolated Incident
After we posted yesterday about a T-Mobile customer being greeted by pictures of topless women when he logged into his account to pay his bill, some of you asked, "What's the problem?" Several readers' stories answer that question. (Censored but not exactly tasteful pictures inside.) UPDATE: T-Mobile response inside.
It could get you in trouble at work:
I have a company supplied T-Mobile blackberry. Very unfortunately, when my phone wasn't working, one of the women in our IT department went to my T-Mobile account page to correct the issue and found a very graphic and clear picture of a woman's breasts. It created a terrible situation. No one – and I mean NO ONE - would believe me when I told them that I did not take the photo, nor did I put it there. I finally had to just drop it because the more I insisted that it wasn't mine, the more guilty I sounded. The problem here is that I am the head of the Human Resources Department. I wish it had turned out to be a funny situation, but it didn't take that path. For many other people, this could be humorous. In my situation, it wasn't.
It could arouse spousal suspicion:
I stumbled across this article this morning, and the same thing happened to me!!!!!!! I was actually sitting at the computer with my wife, looking at my bill and trying to add ring-back tones, and all of a sudden, there was a picture of some girls butt with a caption reading "kiss this". WTF!!?!?? She FLIPPED! To this day, she STILL talks about it! I can understand how she would accuse me of this, but I KNOW for a FACT this picture was never, ever on my phone!!!!!!! How does this happen?!?!
Or you could see something a little more graphic than what our original reader saw:
Dear Sir or Madam:
I am contacting you regarding the highly offensive pictures that have appeared on myTMobile home page. Please see the attached screenshots from last night. As of now, those photos still appear on my homepage whenever I access my account.
I have attempted to resolve this matter via the proper channels, ending in a conversation with TMobile tier-2 technical support. The answers I have received so far are unsatisfactory, and to be frank, somewhat condescending.
I was first told that I had somehow unknowingly uploaded these photos myself, or that I had left my phone unattended and a nefarious person of mystery had uploaded them via my handset without my knowledge. I use an unlocked handset that is not sold by TMobile, and thus do not have the software installed to access TMobile's proprietary MobileLife service. Additionally, I have never used the MobileLife service, nor have I accepted the EULA for the service. Therefore, it is impossible that I have uploaded these offensive pictures, or that someone did so using my handset without my knowledge.
Following that, I was told the photos must have been taken by the TMobile customer who first had this number, and were somehow leftover in the MobileLife folder attached to this number. Again, that is impossible- I have had my number since 2004. It was a Nextel number, then SunCom, then became TMobile when SunCom was purchased. It has never been a TMobile number before now.
Next, the technical support rep told me that this had never happened before, and that the user who took these pictures must have simply transposed digits of intended recipient's phone number. I pointed the rep to http://consumerist.com/5395978/reader-paid-my-t+mobile-bill-saw-some-boobs, indicating that this is not a rogue occurrence. She replied that, even after seeing this article, it still was not TMobile's fault and I should just delete the pictures and move on.
These are the offending pictures (the originals were sent to us as uncensored screencaps of the browser window, but we've cropped them and added cats to obscure the naughty bits).
Another reader wrote in:
just got a new iPhone. Unlocked it and then checked my account online. I thought it was just some weird fluke thing because they couldn't even put a picture up of my phone. Where did the pictures come from? I have no idea. I don't even what "MobileLife" is. My images were both wrong and Oh My God!
The reader who sent this one in said, "I've never uploaded photos to tmobile's website, this picture isn't
from my phone."
Additionally, after the Huffington Post picked up this story, they received a complaint and a different picture from one of their readers: 
The question is, why is it only porn? Why aren't people seeing pictures of strangers birthday parties and goofy faces and so forth? And what is Tmobile going to do about fixing the problem? And how are they going to win their affected customers' trust back?
We've reached out to T-Mobile and passed these complaints and pictures on to them, and they've promised that they'll have a statement ready for us soon. UPDATE: T-Mobile's statement:
T-Mobile is aware of reports from a few customers who have seen inappropriate or unwanted pictures in their online "MyAlbum" section within their MyT-Mobile account. We are taking these reports seriously and actively investigating these issues.
Our initial analysis of the reports leads us to believe that pictures were likely sent to some customers' mobile number by a third party, whether the customers knew the sender or not. If a customer has not had picture messaging enabled on their handset, a picture sent to them may be delivered only to their online MyAlbum account. For this reason, some customers are surprised when they see the picture for the first time in their MyT-Mobile account.
We will continue to investigate the reports but if customers would like to avoid receiving picture messages in the future they can explore using T-Mobile's Message Blocking features which are accessed through their MyT-Mobile account online.
(Cat pictures: amboo who? and D.P. Rubino)
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Comments:
T-mobile... classy!
They will blame hackers.
I don't think I'll ever look at my cats the same way again. Couldn't have used an Aye-Aye instead? You'd still need the brain bleach, but you wouldn't need to have a repeat rinse when you get home.
I'm surprised about the number of pornographic pictures that are being reported. I realize that innocent enough pictures won't generally be commented on, But now that this is getting more attention, are people seeing other, non-pornographic pictures there too, or is someone in T-Mobile's IT department pulling a prank on their entire customer base?
I like the 'we've cropped them and added cats'.
Kudos for the added kitties!
Every time i get someone else's pictures, naked half the time.
This seems like a situation of a hacker or unscrupulous employee doing some damage.
That being said, I am strongly inclined to join this MobileLife thing. Apparently all the hip cats are on there - pun not intended... oh what the hell, it was.
I smell a hack-attack. There's no other plausible explanation I can think of. Obviously T-mobile didn't put that on there on purpose, and using pictures from people's phones online isn't something they would do for privacy reasons. (At least I don't think so)
It could also be a virus in individual computers that manifests itself in this way rather than a hack of the website.
(Not a computer expert, just throwing suggestions out there.)
That is one heck of an all you can eat buffet. Bleh!!! My T-Mobil is due by the tenth but I think I will wait as long as possible to let them get this resolved.
I wouldn't be offended. Send them my way T Mobile.
You covered the naughty pits with Pussies? Interesting strategy.
On a more serious note, I like how the standard company line is "its not our fault, its yours". Instead of "looking into it" they just blame the customer. Slick.
HOLY CRAP! It's on mine too! I just looked just to see what might be and OH CRAP! I'll be sending mine in to Consumerist as well.
"It could arouse spousal suspicion..."
I see what you did there, Alex. Unfortunately, it doesn't lead to spousal arousal.
It's strange that it's only porn that people are getting. Or is it just that people only notice porn? I would imagine that if it's a problem with the system in general, then people should be seeing innocuous pictures as well and not just porn.
I wondor if they'll start charging $19.99/month to 'pay your bill'.
@moore850: Well, AT&T has the iPhone, Verizon has the most 3G coverage, and T-mobile has boobs.
Well played, T-Mobile. Well played.
Is this just one angry tech guy? A nation-wide prank?
Classic Johnny Carson to Zsa Zsa Gabor:
"I will if you move that darn cat!"
What if your 10 year old daughter logged in and got that picture. I think that would spell LAWSUIT in a heartbeat!!!
Those poor poor kitties.
Checked my own bill and all the photos are those that I have taken with my own phone. I'm almost disappointed.
Almost.
T-mobile just can't catch a break these days.
Can it be that the Sidekick outage, the service outage and the pictures are all somehow related? I wonder if their system has been unknowingly compromised.
At least that screwed over HR person can email this site to everyone and add "Fuck you for not believing me", which I would add if it were me.
Ok, now I see the problem.
@diasdiem: Yeah, I'm really not sure why the Consumerist editors thought we'd rather see a cat being sodomized than a penis.
It sounds like the problems are occurring specifically with people who don't even use MobileLife. My guess is that there is a database somewhere of generic filler pictures that are supposed to be used if you don't have any actual pictures in MobileLife. Some hacker or employee has probably gotten into that database and swapped out the pictures with the pornographic ones. The fact that they are almost all highly pornographic clearly indicates that it's intentional.
@Coles_Law: it fits with their marketing campaign.
now, if only we can get them to work on their brand imaging. shouldn't all those pictures be of catherine zeta-jones?
@rhys1882: Not just highly pornographic, but badly pornographic. I mean, the photos in the first article were fine. These are just gross.
Just logged into my account. Not only do I not lose service when they have "outages" but I also don't get the free dirty pictures.
Shame on you T-Mobile for your super cheap awesome service.
WTF!
@rhys1882: I just checked now... I don't use MobileLife, and I don't have any sort of pictures showing, not even the generic "wallet and pictureframe sample" types.
disappointingly, when i log into my account i get a picture of my cats. i was hoping to cash in on the eventual class action lawsuit this will instigate.
This isnt something malicious, its a coding issue within the database that is just showing 1 account images from another (possibly somone that had the number previously?)
This kind of stuff happens.
Has anyone with offensive pics checked the source code to see what server is hosting the images? Is it T-Mobile, or some other site?
My plan is now complete. Mwuahahahahahaha.
(No, for serious, though, I have nothing to do with this. Except for the "I (kitty) U." That's totally me in the picture.)
Just checked my account. Still no boobies...
@ChemicallyInert: "There's no other plausible explanation I can think of."
The feature was coded poorly. A virus seems unlikely, as that would be quite a focused virus.
wowww...that's a scary picture...