Locked Action

Telus Mobility has been my cell provider for several years. Their Island coverage is pretty good and I don’t subscribe for too many features.

They have a self service website which allows me to see my bill.

Last week I wanted to add voicemail to my phone. I thought I remembered seeing something somewhere that said I could do that online. I fired up my browser and used my stored password to open my account. I couldn’t find this ability anywhere so I switched to IE to login and try with that browser.

IE doesn’t store my password so I typed it in. It was incorrect, and after trying a couple more times I locked my account.

Their site says to call them to unlock my account, and it also sends an email with the exact same information.

Eventually I get around to calling them and get put on hold for a very long time. I waited and waited and waited. At least 15 minutes later I got through to someone. I was able to get my transactions done, and then I asked the CSR to unlock my account.

She tells me she can’t tell my my password since they are stored in their DB in an encrypted form.

I didn’t ask about getting my password, I wanted them to unlock my account. She repeats her statements a couple times, but she just doesn’t get it.

Her suggested course of action is to create a new account. ?? WTF. That is a lame workaround. Why can’t the CSR uncheck the box on their screen that says this account is locked? That makes sense to me.

Finally she suggests to me to reset my password by clicking the “forgot your password?” link. I am not sure why I didn’t think of that, but when I tried it, I was prompted with my secret question. A couple clicks later and I was back into my account.

So, here is the procedure. If you lock your Telus Mobility web account, and want to unlock it, forget what their site tells you to do, and pretend you have forgotten your password. Hopefully you will be able to remember the answer to your secret question.