When will something be done about the flawed SMS system?

[Oppressive]

Yes, I've had the same emails since I was around age 12, and I'm 28 now. I use a combo over 4 different passwords with different capital letters and punctuation. I've gone through all of those which leads me to believe I may have used a different password (I changed info on mostly everything before I deployed) As far as phone - I was previously with Alltel, but Verizon bought out Alltel and I was forced to switch - but my number remained the same. Ive seen atleast 15-20 different Verizon customers who have experienced issues with this specific SMS retrieval system. While I can see the text pending on "MyVerizon" it doesn't actually get sent to my phone. I've called the company to try to resolve this and they've said it's not a problem on their end, it's a problem on this end. They also cannot show me the contents of the text due to privacy laws. It's just a really crappy situation which in my opinion could all be avoided if they just went with a double email confirmation or like EQLive does with having to send in proof of picture ID or something of the sort since original emails cannot be changed.

I'm sure this system wasn't really coded by the people at EQEmu or P1999, maybe used from a different source, but something in the code is clearly wrong, or incomplete.


Like I said, maybe if we get enough people who have issues with this to comment with their issue, hopefully we can convince devs to either let us change the number or do away with it entirely. Seems to have caused more bad than good. What was meant to keep scammers at bay has ended up keeping owners out of their own accounts :/

Sort of a last ditch effort, ya know? I do appreciate your input though and I hope you have an awesome day

[GRUMPY]

Originally Posted by Oppressive

could all be avoided if they just went with a double email confirmation

Oh definately, I agree that email confirmation would be more feasible, but there is still
"some" members out there who don't have access to the original email they used, so
it ends up the same scenario. If you read through all the back-dated issues of passwords
and accounts here, you would notice many indicating they "don't have that email anymore",
or "can't get into it". No matter what kind of system is in place, even if it is working
smoothly, it's going to involve players needing to remember passwords, and/or maintaining
email access. The big percentage of this issue is with players who quit for a long time
and came back without remembering anything, lost account info, don't have same email,
don't have same phone. etc.
Something I do myself, (just in case), I go into my email and send an email to myself
with all my accounts and some "hints" at what the passwords are. Although I have a
great memory and have never needed to reference it, it's there, just in case I need it.
But to do it that way, one only has to remember one email, one password and keep it
active. It's a no-fail solution. But again, if one forgets that email/password, it's back
to the drawing board, haha
Of course the biggest problem here, is convincing the admin's of who you really are,
if you can't give enough info to prove you're the owner of the account. So that's an
obvious security in place. Anyone can be anybody on the internet.
Even, back when I played on live, I had a few accounts and there was some info that
one was (very strictly enforced), not able to be changed, so the owner of the account
could easily identify him/herself. I like that concept myself.
I know some people don't have as good of memory as others, mine does ok. Last month
I logged into an old, old yahoo email I had in 2001'ish but any and all accounts and
passwords, for everything I do, (online banking, etc), there is none of those important
personal logins written or typed anywhere. It's all just in memory.

[Oppressive]

I agree - another good option is security questions, those have always worked with me. And of course the scanned picture of the ID.


Also, yeah people lose email accounts (.edu's, .govs, .mil) but I would say half of the time people who 'forgot their emails' are people just trying to fluff the system. I have access to the same email accounts i've had since grade school, but thats only because I was able to retrieve them with security questions. While I do see that losing information to accounts with time is inevitable, I just think this whole SMS sytem is really, really flawed. Not being able to update the number upon getting a new phone, people simply not getting the text, not being able to see what number its even going to (or atleast last 4). Like I said originally, this entire process has just been extremely frustrating and not getting any feedback from the admins or devs about it just adds insult to injury...Basically "yeah we made the sms to protect your account, but if the sms system doesnt work for you, then that sucks"


I just want them to atleast buff out the scratches in the system, at the very least. Or now that problems are arising in the hundreds due to it, maybe do a reset, people can choose not to add on now that they know it doesnt work for them.

But above, the guy said admins could transfer character data, that would also be an easy fix for people in which this system doesnt work for, transfer their data to an account that doesnt have SMS, atleast now we will know not to use it.


I've kept all of my passwords and account names for any game or website in a composition book for years, nearly 20 pages of nothing but passwords, account names but I've moved so many times in the last 7 years I've lost half of my belongings in transit

Hopefully something comes of this, if not, at the very least, i would like to bring strict awareness of the problem to devs and admins.