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

[cyndin]

I was reading this and thought, okay, it's no problem if she doesn't know the passwords as long as she can access his phone and/or email. Then you're talking about dropping his phone? Nooooo.... I'd give it a month or two. Not just for passwords (and you don't even have to sign up for 2FA to get codes on your phone) but because there may be people calling him who don't know he has passed or who do know and have no other way to reach the family. Most will have done so already but it could take a while.

I remember a few years ago when a friend suddenly became widowed and she was trying desperately to get into her late husband's phone. If your mom has some way to get to passwords and such, it will make these days so much easier to navigate. Just hold off. A couple extra months won't cost very much.

[cellio]

Oh that's a good point -- we should look at his recent calls to see if there are people we haven't thought of who need to know. And people might call. I will tell her to not touch the phone plan and if that's a financial burden for her, I will take care of it. It's too important.

I guess I'm going to need to teach her to use email. My father spent years (nay, decades) trying to get her to learn that and she didn't think she needed it so she didn't listen. Now she needs it and this is the very worst way to have to climb that learning curve. I'm hoping I can do all the digital sleuthing for her and push that off for now.