Get Gephardt: Utah County man wants cell phone company to stop assigning his number to others

WOODLAND HILLS, Utah County – Ron Dimmick has used the same cell phone number for 20 years. But boy, he would sure love it if T-Mobile would stop giving his number to other people. It’s a problem he’s been dealing with for seven years now – and counting.

“So, there’s another person with another phone with another SIM card with the same phone number as me,” Dimmick said.

He says he kept this number when he switched from T-Mobile to a new provider seven years ago. T-Mobile apparently didn’t remove his number from their catalog of available phone numbers because he says they kept assigning it to others while he’s still using it.

“I would get texts from people who were trying to contact a friend or relative who just got a new phone number from T-Mobile,” Dimmick explained.

Every time this happens, he says he calls T-Mobile and that stops the problem as they presumably assign the other customer a different number. But after a few months, Dimmick’s phone starts pinging again — the number again assigned to someone new.

“I want T-Mobile to take my number out of their system and to stop giving it to other people,” he said.

Not sure where else to turn, he decided it was time to contact the KSL Investigators. This time, we reached out to T-Mobile on Dimmick’s behalf — not through customer service but through the corporate communications team.

“We’re sorry for what (Dimmick) experienced,” a T-Mobile spokesperson wrote in an email. “We checked with the Care Team and it’s our understanding that this is resolved.”

If this fix doesn’t hold this time and someone still gets assigned his number, Dimmick says it may be time to just abandon the number.
So, what can you do if it happens to you?

Cell phone companies are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. While they declined to comment on this specific situation, they say people should file a complaint with the FCC if their mobile provider isn’t fixing issues.