Locked out of AT&T Email
May 10, 2022 1:39 PM Subscribe
I've been locked out of my AT&T email account because of too many unsuccessful sign in attempts. I have questions.
I didn't realize until almost too late that I'd been trying to sign in with a password for a different account. On the last attempt I entered the correct password, but I was then prompted with two security questions which I couldn't remember the answers to, so I exited.
I now get this message when I try to sign in:
"Looks like you’ve tried to sign in unsuccessfully too many times. Recover your ID or reset your password to continue.
Care Code: 205.2 [LU003]"
Researching this on the web, it looks like I'll have to wait 72 hours before the account is unlocked before I can try to sign in again. (This would normally be 24 hours, but because I no longer have an active account with AT&T, it's 72 hours.)
I have questions:
How many attempts will I be allowed to make on the security questions? I have an inkling of what I might have entered, but I'm not sure. After a certain number of attempts, will I be locked out again for another 72 hours?
Does AT&T check for uppercase/lowercase on the security answers?
How long can I keep trying to sign in? I'm pretty sure I've got the answers to the security questions written down, but they got buried somewhere after a house move. If I came across the written answers in a year or two, would I have any trouble signing in? Does AT&T ever permanently lock an account if there are too many attempts made to sign in?
How many sign in attempts does AT&T allow before it temporarily locks an account?
I have a laptop and a desktop. I originally tried using both to sign in. Would that have any impact?
Is there anything I should do (or should not do) to get back into that account? I saw something about using a different browser, or clearing the cache, for instance. How would doing these things help?
Is there anything else that might be useful to know?
I didn't realize until almost too late that I'd been trying to sign in with a password for a different account. On the last attempt I entered the correct password, but I was then prompted with two security questions which I couldn't remember the answers to, so I exited.
I now get this message when I try to sign in:
"Looks like you’ve tried to sign in unsuccessfully too many times. Recover your ID or reset your password to continue.
Care Code: 205.2 [LU003]"
Researching this on the web, it looks like I'll have to wait 72 hours before the account is unlocked before I can try to sign in again. (This would normally be 24 hours, but because I no longer have an active account with AT&T, it's 72 hours.)
I have questions:
How many attempts will I be allowed to make on the security questions? I have an inkling of what I might have entered, but I'm not sure. After a certain number of attempts, will I be locked out again for another 72 hours?
Does AT&T check for uppercase/lowercase on the security answers?
How long can I keep trying to sign in? I'm pretty sure I've got the answers to the security questions written down, but they got buried somewhere after a house move. If I came across the written answers in a year or two, would I have any trouble signing in? Does AT&T ever permanently lock an account if there are too many attempts made to sign in?
How many sign in attempts does AT&T allow before it temporarily locks an account?
I have a laptop and a desktop. I originally tried using both to sign in. Would that have any impact?
Is there anything I should do (or should not do) to get back into that account? I saw something about using a different browser, or clearing the cache, for instance. How would doing these things help?
Is there anything else that might be useful to know?
This thread is closed to new comments.
Laptop/desktop shouldn't have much of an effect as they would probably be the same IP address.
Generally you get a couple tries at the security questions, but I'm not sure whether they'd check for upper/lower.. if they're smart, they wouldn't. But jury's out on that.
You can't clear cache and try again - they are blocking login attempts with that message from their side. Chances are they lock after 5 consecutive attempts in less than 10 minutes or some such scale.
Permanent lockouts are never the result of ordinary security issues like this, otherwise I could permanently lock you out from your account just by entering your email and garbage passwords and security answers.
I would try the security questions, this is what they're for and chances are they're not something you'd need to write down — what street did you grow up on, mother's maiden name, etc.
After 72 hours you'll be able to log in again, but if it's urgent you could look around for a way to contact them and establish your identity by other means. But AT&T is a big company and email is not a high priority product for them to resolve issues like this on short notice.
Do you happen to have a phone or other device that uses this email and is already logged in, that you could receive email at? Then you could do a password reset from that device.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:51 PM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]