and after, there is tech support

[cellio]

My mother is not computer-savvy, and when she's ready I'll help her sort out my father's computer stuff and (I hope) break into his account so we can sort out whatever household stuff he was managing online (like bill payments). She has "an old password" written down; here's hoping that helps.

She mentioned, in passing, that she'll contact their cell carrier to drop his line -- no sense continuing to pay for a second phone, after all.

Do I need to prevent her from doing that until we determine whether he was using 2FA for anything? I haven't figured out the right search queries that will cut through what you should do in advance lest you lose your phone. Like, I don't know where or if he was using 2FA, so I can't just go in and set alternate recovery addresses or something. The point is to be able to get into those accounts later, when my mom is ready. Does she need to keep paying for cell service so that phone number will be able to receive texts, or is there some other way to handle that? Should I go with her when she visits the cell provider (yes she was going to go to a store and do that in person)?

Anybody among my readers navigated this before?

Comments

[richardf8]

When my MiL passed, we were handed a cell phone that didn't even have a password on it, which was great, because we were picking up the pieces of a life we new little about.

My thoughts is that you shouldn't even be treating this as a technical problem. If your mother is aware of what he was managing just let the each know he's dead and billing should come to her by whatever means she will find easiest.

And the best thing we did was to engage an attorney to help us navigate all that. It cost a bit, but having a "paid bailee" is well worth it.

[cellio]

For bills, I assume she'll find out eventually because she'll get notices or something. But there could be other accounts that don't leave that trail. Did my dad have a PayPal account, for example? That would never generate a paper letter; it's all online. Patreon? Kickstarter? Games? Maybe not those, but maybe other things I wouldn't know to look for. Searching his email for things that look like receipts should provide clues, I hope.