My son left the country for a few years to do service. He discontinued his phone number. Now coming home, He’s trying to log in to his email, apple ID, etc, but it requires him to enter the code from a text sent to his discontinued number. We just need to access this number once so we can get in to his accounts and change his phone number there. Any idea how we can do this?
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You can try contacting the new owner of the phone number to see if they are willing to help facilitate your request.
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This is a good example why it is always good to port a number to a service like Google Voice instead of just cancelling it. Also one of the many reasons why 2FA is more trouble than it’s worth.
Unfortunately, since he cancelled the phone number so long ago, there is a very low probability that the phone number is still available to give back to your son. Most accounts do have alternative ways of getting back in because developers know that there is the possibility that the account owner changes their phone numbers. Those processes can take a bit more time and effort and is unique for each account that you need to get into. I know that many accounts like email and Apple ID can hold valuable information, so it could be worth the effort to get back into those.
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