A San Diego woman says a billing mistake left her facing more than $1,200 in charges for five wireless phone lines she insists she never signed up for — until NBC 7 Responds got involved and helped get the issue resolved.

Toni Lien explains all the legwork she put in to try to resolve the phone billing issue that kept getting worse.

Toni Lien said the problem began a few months ago when she transferred her phone number to a different provider. She said she only intended to move one line.

“Then, when I got my first bill, it was for five phones, one of them being mine. The others were all numbers that I didn’t even know,” Lien said. “And so I had a huge bill.”

Lien recalled how she visited a Verizon store near her home, where she was instructed to pay the bill and told that the issue would be addressed. She said she paid it, hoping the mistake would be corrected.

But the following month, she said she was hit with yet another large bill.

Lien said she returned to the store, but employees were unable to resolve the problem. She then tried calling Verizon herself.

“I just couldn’t get a human, I really wanted to get a human,” Lien said with a half smile.

Eventually, she received a bill for more than $1,200. Lien said she also ended up getting a text with a warning if she didn’t pay the bill.

“They sent me a text, which was a link threatening me with shutting off my phone and also that they would be going to…a collection agency,” Lien said.

Feeling frustrated, Lien said a friend from her book club suggested she contact NBC 7 Responds.

Tonie Lien shares with NBC 7 Responds how her bill blew up to more than \$1,200 in just a few months.

After hearing her story, the consumer team reached out to Verizon to ask why she was having so much trouble correcting the billing issue.

“It’s very comforting, and the fact that I felt so lost and alone in this. Now, I feel like I have somebody to help me out with this,” Lien said.

Three days later, Verizon provided a statement to NBC 7 Responds:

“We’ve come to a satisfactory resolution with the customer. For customer privacy purposes, we won’t be able to elaborate on specifics.”

Lien confirmed she is no longer responsible for the more than $1,200 bill and is not at risk of disconnection or being sent to collections.

“Whatever you did, I don’t need to know what it was you did, but it worked,” Lien said.

With the billing dispute behind her, Lien — who is about to turn 90 — is refocusing on preparing for a pilgrimage to Spain and Portugal along El Camino de Santiago de Compostela.

It’s a pilgrimage she will be able to fully enjoy without an erroneous $1,200 phone bill weighing her down.

This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication.