I was incapacitated for many years and my phone plan lapsed, so I lost the number. My email account lapsed and so did all my domains, so I lost access to all my email addresses. I now have about 1000 online accounts that I have no way to access because there is no way to authenticate myself. 2FA can be a real pain in some situations, even though I still advise everyone I know to enable it on their most sensitive accounts as the alternatives aren't great.
What you went through must have been really awful, I’m sorry that happened to you. That being said, this sounds like a rare occurrence. I’m sure since then you’ve created some contingency plan especially if there is a potential for a repeat. This actually highlights one of my fears of everything being tied to a phone number because you can never truly own it and it can be canceled or you could be sim-swapped.
You would have think I would learn. But no, it happened all over again last year, and I again lost my phone number and access to my email, but this time a friend managed to renew all but one of my domains, so I've managed to access to about 50% of the new accounts I created. And all my possessions were burned up in a fire this time, so I lost all my ID, passport, birth certificate, SSN card etc, which made things ever harder - BUT my landlord saved my actual phone handset with all my TOTP codes on it, which helped a lot!
Let me be a lesson to everyone. Plan for total disaster. Have a plan B and plan C. Don't go through all the work I went through to get your life back on track.
It's a long story. Illegally arrested for a crime I didn't commit. Spent almost 10 years in jail because I couldn't get access to my money to pay my bond. Charges were dismissed by the court after five years, but as I was walking out of the jail they arrested me for other charges I wasn't guilty of. Spent another five years waiting for trial on those; finally got out of jail for a few months; was harassed by the police, Tweeted about it, sentenced to five months in jail for a Tweet which basically said "LOL here come the police again to harass me"; went to trial on the other charges, judge is mad about the Tweet, finds me guilty without a shred of evidence being offered. Sentenced to maximum sentence, despite no evidence of guilt; already served all the time so should have been released, but authorities won't accept the address I gave them for parole; sent to a supermax prison for three months, then a minimum prison for another month, then released; waiting for exoneration in a few months on appeal.
