Not Receiving Two Factor Authentication

[Notahappyboy]

I’m a new customer switched from 3 as the EE coverage is better in the rural area i live.

Currently I have a house insurance claim being managed by Sedgwick loss adjusters, its virtually impossible to speak to them by phone due to the vast number of claims they are processing, however their mysedgwick portal works very well. To access the portal they message you a two factor authentication code, this has worked brilliantly while I was a 3 customer.

Since joining EE I don’t receive the codes. 

Having spent 1 hour talking to EE technical support this morning, the best they can come up with is “your existing number Ported successfully on 3 April you now need to wait until 17 April by which time 3 will have transferred all of your files over and hopefully this issue will be resolved”

Personally i feel I was being fobbed off and they don’t have a clue why these codes are not being received.

Has anyone else in the community had such issues ?

perhaps the best course of action is to close the EE account and go back to 3.

[Christopher_G]

Hi @gazglasgow 

Welcome to the community.

Are all of your other SMS messages being received OK?

Chris

[gazglasgow]

Hi
Yes all other services are currently working.
email sent wirefree using an EE iPhone

email systems powered by Microsoft Office 365

Client ID: GCIP

[James_B]

Hi @gazglasgow,

I'd recommend contacting our Technical Support Team on 150, if they're unable to resolve the issue, they should be able to raise a support ticket for it.

Thanks

James

[gazglasgow]

Hi James

I am quite technical myself and I came to the reasonable conclusion that the incoming messages are marked as spam.

Of course I may be wrong but when I called 150 I got absolutely nowhere. I knew that the customer service staff would have no means of verifying my theory and that this issue would need to be escalated further down the chain.

That however was not possible. The chap said he had no means to do so and my phone call was just a waste of time 

[James_B]

Hi @gazglasgow,

I'm sorry the team weren't able to resolve this for you.

If they've deemed that the message has been filtered due to it triggering network security protocols, they won't be able to override this, and you'd need to contact the 3rd party service for help with setting up an alternative verification method.

James

[gazglasgow]

Hi James

Thanks for your response. Nothing was verified during my call. It is quite clear that the network is blocking the message. Obviously network security is an issue that needs to be taken seriously but like email the spam filter sometimes gets it wrong. There has to be a way for the end user to highlight this and a possible resolution considered. By having your network security department effectively detached from real end user problems then you will lose customers. I am not using the 2FA service of a possibly dodgy service. it's GoPro the camera manufacturer. They have a cloud storgae service which permits the use of 2FA at login for extra security. I like to use 2FA wherever possible. Unfortunately text is the only method of authentication at present.

I have already proven that this is an EE issue as I have tested on a phone on the O2 network and the codes are received. I have since, as of today, tried the 2FA service again on a phone connected to Three and again the code is received.

Unless someone is willing to actually look at my account and determine exactly what is going on then this will probably never be fixed.

I am not the only person to be complaining of missing 2FA codes for other services so perhaps someone could perhaps wake up at EE and properly look at this issue.

For anyone else with continued problems like this where text is the only means of sending a 2FA code then you may be interested to hear of my workaround. I am fortunate in that I have an Android phone that doesn't get used. I purchased a £1.00 Three sim from Poundland. I stuck it in the phone and have not topped it up. The phone seems to happily receive phone calls and texts. I changed the phone number on my GoPro account to that of the new Three sim and voila the 2FA codes are received. I don't wish to carry the Android handset with me so I installed the SMS Forwarder App and once setup the 2FA code text message is sent to me by email within a few seconds. That allows me to authenticate.

Setting up the SMS Forwarder App is a fiddle as you will need to enter the SMTP details of your mail provider to get the emails sent. The app does seem to have a gmail API setting so you can use a gmail address without any complicated settings. I don't have a gmail address and didn't create one. Forwarding using SMS to another number should just work without any settings needed but you will need credit on the sim. I wanted a free of charge solution so just the leave the Android phone switched on and connected to WiFi. It works a treat.

[grantp1]

Hi Peter,

It seems to be only the phone that has the problem.

I'm trying to link it to the broadband account via the app link as prompted.

Phone is a Poco X3 pro running Android 12.

My Samsung tablet running Android 11 seems happy and the same link sends messages to the Poco phone. So allowing the Tablet to link to the account.

Seems odd.

I have tried clearing cache on the phone. Then updated the app from Play Store (just in case...). I have delayed app data. Then uninstalled the app and re-installed.

Even if I change the account contact number to a second SIM in the phone nothing on the phone has changed but the same app on the tablet works as expected and sends SMS to the phone via the alternative number.

On the phone, the message about sending the confirmation code to a number ending in the 4 digits displayed is always the same and NOT the last 4 digits of the current number associated with the account.

However, if displayed digits 3 and 4 appeared as 1 and 2 respectively and 2 other digits appeared in 4 and 4 it could be correct. 

The existing digits 1 and 2 do appear in the number string earlier than the last 4 digits but not necessarily in the order down on the confirmation screen and not consecutively in that order.

It's one of the strangest-looking data-related problems I've seen over the years - and I've seen quite a few when testing systems.

I'm minded to reboot the phone just to see what happens. However, the app was only first installed 2 or 3 days ago and the problem has been consistent from installation.

Suggestions welcome. 

I'm about to update the router, etc., and I don't relish my wife's reaction if some strange glitch makes that process go away. It all looks so simple in the documentation - but then these things always do... Initially 

Thanks for your interest.