T-Mobile, like other carriers, has a special app for its customers that helps them to do things like view their usage and pay bills. T-Mobile's is dubbed "My Account" and, although it includes several handy features, some T-Mobile customers have noticed that a recent update to the app has added something that may be slightly less helpful: advertisements in the Android notification area. As you can see above, the app pushes ads for T-Mobile-specific services to the user's notification bar. T-Mobile representatives have responded to user complaints about the ads in the carrier's official support forums and are working on a way to stop the ads.

This isn't the first time that we've heard about ads being sent to a user's notification area, and although T-Mobile is only showing ads for its services, it's still kind of a bummer to see them begin to pop up in users' notification bars out of nowhere. The good news is that it sounds like T-Mobile is trying to figure the issue out and stop the ads from hitting users' devices. We'll pass along more details on a solution as we get them. Have any of you T-Mobile customers received one of these ads in your notification area?

UPDATE: A T-Mobile spokesperson has issued a statment to our friends at TmoNews concerning the situation, explaining that a message promoting T-Mobile's VIP Zone was mistakenly sent to certain customers after a recent software update. The notifications have now been stopped. You can find T-Mo's full statement below:

"During a recent software update, a message to promote T-Mobile’s free VIP Zone was mistakenly sent to certain customers and appeared on the notification bar for some Android devices. After T-Mobile was made aware of this mistake, the company stopped the notifications. T-Mobile apologizes for the inconvenience this may have caused customers."

Via Phone Scoop, T-Mobile support forums, TmoNews (1), (2)