NEVER AGREE TO Sam's 2-Step Authentication!!!!
I was in a parallel predicament when my phone was stolen, except with far worse implications. Without my physical phone, every account login attempt resulted in Samsung auto-sending a passcode to the thieves with my stolen phone. When I called and offered a reward the thieves hung up on me. Google came in handy with an ability to send a screensaver message to my phone listing a callback #and reward post, while Samsung played the villain. I could not remote wipe my drive, lock it, check for last backup time or report, nor check my Samsung cloud activity. I could log into my Samsung account, but not the cloud account without satisfying Sam's 2-Step. It was more than a joke, it was an epic plot. Every time I even tried to employ one of Samsung's 'secure phone' procedures, or log into the cloud, it would auto-send ANOTHER passcode to the thieves!!!
I started a ticket on Monday night, called back every day and waited for inept and aggressive call center agents (the Philipino agents were fine, but every male Indian continent agent was an arrogant tech-bro douche often yelling and hanging up out of frustration when they weren't busy reading scripted responses-- and I had little issue with them, even while they were reading lengthy scripts and consistently losing my ticket#, Im in the tech profession and these guys were flat out lying several times, as well as not saving notes from prior calls to my report, not saving requests to escalate. "Escalating" my ticket was supposed to raise awareness to the 1 center responsible for checking/removing Sam's 2-step, the only center which had no access to customer service agents (even Legal could be written to by snail-mail). So I called twice a day, every day to check on the status of my ticket, but not a SINGLE email was sent to me confirming call receipt, nor case ref# status. Each call had a 45 wait time or would call me back and then the automated system wouldnt accept my button entry and would hang up the callback phone call before talking to an agent. So Id just keep calling, several different branches of Samsung account agents, twice a day for the 24hr-48hr, 2-step removal timeline. Each call lasted 1-5hrs, twice a day. Its now been 8 days without any change. The last actually recorded ticket was entered Wednesday (not the initial "lost"-ticket Monday).
After 10years of loyalty to Samusng, forget about it and their crappy international call center that's not even open 24hrs a day, has terrible English, overly lengthy scripts they must read, too many lengthy "We are so sorry's" instead of just giving me the info straight.
On top of all of this, Google screwed me up with its own 2-step Security Key. I told GoogleOne agents (who were clear and capable) that I didnt sign up for a security key, that Ive never had, nor purchased a single security key in my life, to which we together unpacked the reality (over 3hr phone call) of Google and Samsung's new partnership with Titan Security keys. It was correct to say that I had never purchased a security key, but one dark night, after prompting my phone with a popup message encouraging me to add my cell phone as an additional known device for better security, I hit yes. NOT KNOWING that in the event of losing, breaking, or stealing my phone, Google's 2-step auth would make it impossible for me to do certain things...
At the same time, my Chrome browser had been stuttering and freezing, my MAC laptop was fine. I installed Firefox as a backup browser but could not do a fresh Gmal login until I had the Google 2-Step passcode which had been sent to my stollen phone. So now I had no way of making further calls to Samsung (using Google voice) because Chrome was stuttering to a white screen whenever it felt like it. Google made its own 2step procedure with Titan Security, but then they also teamed up with Samsung to build their fiasco. They are both to blame, for sure. But Samsung was even worse, and impossible to get a hold of. I coudnt wipe my SIM chip remotely until I had activated the backup through the Samsung cloud account. And I couldnt do any of that till I remedied the Google 2-step first. So Google is no dummy and they removed it within 2days, with a notification email since they actually have brains and a heart.
Its now been another 6days for Samsung to remove to lift their 2-step, with no status email communication to me, at all; thats 8 days now.
SAMSUNG IS THE WORST
They closed all their experience stores, their Account settings are constantly turning on GPS and draining my battery, they send a notice to set up Samsung Pay or notify me of new features several times a week which I have to flip through several screen swipes to get rid of popout which always auto-opens Samsung Pay and then uses mire data and time wasted. And they are untrustworthy spies with zero care for customer privacy. They give access to the camera and microphone if u ever want to backup photos to their cloud, no middle ground, this is ludicrous!!!
There should only be permissions listed that are actually necessary.
After 10 years and several Galaxy models, Im getting any other phone by any other company, you massive a**hats.
