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Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

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Re: Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

#271

Post by jcpham2 »

Let’s talk about the control these big tech companies have over our lives, because last week I was locked out of Amazon and closed my account with them.

I understand my issue is entirely different from Op’s from the wealth perspective but the fact remains a third party holds all the keys to the kingdom.

I woke up last week to a flurry of Amazon chargeback alerts. Somehow, Amazon (Chase Bank) issued me a new credit card because my old card was expiring and they continued to allow me to buy my entire family’s Christmas on an expired credit card - or this is what appears to have happened.

Instead of contacting me or charging the new, correct card Amazon decided to lock my account. That makes ever Amazon device stop working. You can’t access AWS, you can’t login to update your credit card.

We have a home full of Amazon bricks suddenly, the kids alarms clocks no longer even function as clocks.

The customer service was so poor I am no longer a customer of Amazon. I held firm and let them know if they didn’t unlock my account they could sort it out themselves with the credit card company.

Make no mistake these companies are holding us hostage the more we depend on them.

Re: Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

#272

Post by wereallterrrist »

djha-skin wrote: post #183
opan wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless something changed, you can enable SMS MFA, add TOTP as a secondary MFA option, then remove SMS to only have TOTP. I did this a couple years ago after someone explained it to me. It is stupid, tedious, and still requires giving up your phone number to Google, but it may help you as it did me. I also use KeePassXC and have had phone issues in the past, so I hate relying on my phone for anything important (it's a…

That's just my point: it has changed.

This came up two months ago and I posted screenshots of a new 2FA setup and it very clearly allowed registering a TOTP or Yubikey without SMS. You just had to actually spend 10 seconds looking at the page and seeing there was a link for it.

Re: Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

#273

Post by wereallterrrist »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #230
djha-skin wrote: post #163

I wanted to point out a very serious problem related to this post: Google will no longer simply accept totp as a verification but insists on sending you a notification to one of your devices. Now I can't just use KeepassXC to get into Google anymore, I have to use my phone. The problem that the OP points out provides very real and poignant evidence that this is not only annoying but dangerous. What is it that compani…

Yes!!! This has happened to me before. I entered my TOTP and then Google forced me to open YouTube on my phone. I didn't have YouTube (I deleted it), so I had to re-installed the YouTube app and sign in through that before I could login to whatever I was initially trying to do.

This makes absolutely beyond zero sense given how Google accounts work on Android, or just in general.

Re: Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

#274

Post by wereallterrrist »

im3w1l wrote: post #99

I'd argue that the most logical long term solution is that Google figures something out with the government. E.g. go to the DMV to recover your account. The government is the fundamental root of trust and authority on who is who, so it just makes sense that your "official" online life should tie in with that like say your google account and online banking (for more casual stuff like say a reddit account, the drawback…

I swear to God I'm taking crazy pills in this thread. The second that the government can arbitrate access to my Google account is the day I nuke my Google account from freaking orbit.

I've been using a yubikey on my Google account for 5+ years and this thread makes me want to scream.

Re: Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

#275

Post by wereallterrrist »

breck wrote: post #68

Quoted post unavailable.

I never flag content but this was an easy one. Ignoring the utter stupidity of not being able to sanely transfer money in the US, there are countless better ways of sending someone money in a scenario like this. In fact, it's hard to think of a worse way than using crypto, and I'm far from a crypto hater.

Linking to a long form YT video with some gd floating talking head screencasting a Mac, with no text description really just seals the deal.

I don't think money is going to fix the problem at hand, but I suppose I'll extend a similar offer - I'd Western Union cash to you Doreen, if it would help, or help you purchase a good meal so you can regroup/recharge.

Re: Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

#276

Post by wereallterrrist »

cirrus3 wrote: post #149
discardedrefuse wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick isn't to disable 2FA. It's to add a bunch of 2FA methods that don't rely on your cell phone: authenticator app, yubi keys, backup codes.

"Ways we can verify it's you" seems to be limited to 1 email and 1 phone number now.

Yall need to post screenshots. I do not believe you

https://i.imgur.com/hENFQtG.png

As seen in the image, nearly 10 years, never a single issue, and there's not a chance of someone compromising one of my active 2FA options.

Re: Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

#277

Post by Wowfunhappy »

saagarjha wrote: post #205
halostatue wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have uninstalled Google applications from most of the mobile devices that I use for this exact reason.

Google will send you codes to devices that don’t even have the app installed. Ask me how I know.

Wait, what? How does that work?

Re: Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

#278

Post by bubblethink »

>the codes are still going to the old physical phone

This is something that your cell phone carrier needs to sort out. This should ideally not happen, but if your number is operational on the new phone, but you don't get texts, the carrier will help you. This is the only problem you have, right ?

Edit: The above refers to SMS. If by codes, you mean google's notifications in their app, that's a different thing. However, google will offer some alternate recovery mechanism - either SMS or a backup email.

Re: Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

#279

Post by actionfromafar »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #236
TurkishPoptart wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What's worse is that the the error messages never explain the problem. It's just an endless sequence of "Oops! Something went wrong" "We could not fulfill your request" "Please try again later". You're absolutely right. They each carry the tone of "This content isn't available right now", like when trying to view a tweet from a shadowbanned user. I've seen that drive people, particularly family, into a kind of aggre…

> They each carry the tone of "This content isn't available right now" At this point it's merely static deception. Wait until they run a GPT bot programmed to interactively lie to you, deflect, stall, misdirect and stonewall you based on your personal profile. These companies are devious and untrustworthy to their core, and the only reason anyone uses them is because they're forced to.

No need to wait: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/13/becoming-...

Re: Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

#280

Post by cge »

savingsPossible wrote: post #48

If anyone got afraid and wants to disable 2fa, go to https://myaccount.google.com/security

If you don't have 2FA enabled, it seems that Google will now sometimes arbitrarily choose a previously logged in device or previously associated phone number and require 2FA through those, so having it disabled can be even more dangerous.
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