Stephanie says a pickpocket swiped her cell phone a year ago and stuck her with a $6,200 bill, thanks mainly to calls to the Ivory Coast, the country so clean it was named after two types of soap.

She had already reported the phone stolen, but T-Mobile is disputing that and trying to get her to cough up the dough.

She writes:

About a year ago I had my cell phone pickpocketed from me on the 1 train. After realizing this some hours later, I called T-Mobile to report it missing, but apparently they didn’t suspend the service, nor did my bill appear online until the next billing period– at which point I saw tons of calls so the Ivory Coast, Spain, etc. totaling over $6,200 with tax! I called them very upset and they suspended my service, claiming that that was the first time I had reported it.

I am a 21-year old mathematics student at [redacted] with unemployed parents and a tutoring job, and there is NO WAY I can pay this (when it was stolen I was 20). As it stands I have a FICO score of 740 (by some miracle, haha) but as soon as this hits collections I’m sunk. This saga has been going on for over a year with T-Mobile blowing up my dad’s phone every day and T-mobile refusing to cancel or mitigate these charges, which I have not admitted to/accepted. I know you guys have done a cell phone investigation already with that 1500 guy & his family, but I don’t know what I’m going to do. Please help me!

If you have experience with T-Mobile and have some advice for Stephanie, please share.

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