iPhone account recovery when old phone's screen is broken?

[iChase2017]

I had an iPhone 5, but last week, I dropped it and the screen broke, rendering it totally unviewable. I purchased an iPhone SE, and brought it to the local AT&T store so they could transfer the account over.

When I arrived home, I plugged the SE into my Macbook in order to restore the backup data I had saved to my hard drive from the iPhone 5 (I namely just wanted to transfer over my old photos and phone directory).

Things more-or-less went smoothly, until the two-step verification process. I certainly know my Apple ID and password, and even the additional password I was asked to create when I made the backup save file. However, after updating the iPhone SE to the latest OS in order to make it compatible with the iPhone 5 data, the restore process / authentication process repeatedly asked me to retrieve a passcode/PIN of some kind that they keep sending ... to my old iPhone 5 with the broken screen, which I obviously cannot use.

Saturday night, I initiated the account recovery process, which is very protracted and feels unnecessary (especially when the site revolves around a domain called "iforgot," as if I somehow forgot something, when in reality, it's Apple that apparently forgot that users with broken phones they're replacing have no means of accessing data sent to those broken phones ...

So what's the problem? I understood it would take a few days to complete this process, but now I'm starting to worry, in part because almost exactly 24 hours after I made the account recovery request, I got an email from apple stating that a request was made. That makes sense, and they correctly relayed the right third-party contact phone number (my sister's) that they said they would eventually send instructions to. However, the time of the request in the email was off by 24 hours, and the email says the request was made from New York; I live in Iowa.

Should I be concerned? Is there anything else I can do at this point to resolve this?

 

[nostresshere]

Not sure if this will help, but I recently "washed" my iphone6. Screen dead, but phone still working. Since we have a cable that connects the phone to an HDMI cable - I was able to actually view the phone on the screen and enter password. Very difficult, but possible.

 

[I7guy]

Always a good lesson to remember to input multiple trusted sources for your 2fa.

 

[nostresshere]

Always a good lesson to remember to input multiple trusted sources for your 2fa.

Yes. I have just changed most things to do with my phone to email. After all, if I am having trouble with my phone, that is a poor place to send a notice.

 

[iChase2017]

Yes. I have just changed most things to do with my phone to email. After all, if I am having trouble with my phone, that is a poor place to send a notice.

Thank you for responding. However, I never intentionally designated my iPhone 5 as an exclusive 2fa. It apparently just ... "happened." Regardless, the idea that my email address needs to be actively designated as mine and mine only seems hypocritical of Apple; they seem to have no problem emailing me semi-confidential information about iTunes purchases and account data, yet by default, that same email can't be used to confirm other types of account activity, like the transferring of iPhone data?

It's also frustrating that when I left the ATT store, my new iPhone SE was working with my old number. Since I tried to restore the new phone with my old restore save files, however, the phone is now a $250 brick until Apple grants me access to it.

For a company that has my credit card data, home address, social security number, fingerprint, voice and god only knows what other information, this process seems inexcusably slow and inefficient.

Anyway, if you guys think I should just wait it out, I guess that's what I'll do. Does anyone know how many days this process usually takes?
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Not sure if this will help, but I recently "washed" my iphone6. Screen dead, but phone still working. Since we have a cable that connects the phone to an HDMI cable - I was able to actually view the phone on the screen and enter password. Very difficult, but possible.

That's a good suggestion, though I probably won't be able to do that; although I bet I could locate one of those cords, I don't think my touchscreen input works either, and I believe I'd need to interact with the phone in order to open Apple's text message and retrieve the passcode.

 

[Applejuiced]

Not much you can do but wait for assistance from Apple.
But like the user above said have an email setup and also a secondary phone number to send a text with the code.
I have like 6 trusted devices in my account just in case.

 

[960design]

I do not believe we need to plug our iPhones into a computer any longer. Just log in using your AppleID and everything should just show up.

For example, with my current iPhone7. I received the phone by mail. Started it up after a couple of minutes I had service. Logged in using my current AppleID and connected to local WiFi. After about 15 minutes, everything was sync'd up. Photos, email, documents, ect. I did have to download my apps from the App Store, under purchased.

Same deal with my new MBP. Logged into my iCloud account and everything just sync'd right up.

PS. Old messages would not sync, but that is fixed in iOS11. I never cared to keep old messages, but I understand many do. It is my understanding that the only way to keep your messages would be through a backup. Cautiously, I believe we can restore from online backup and get everything back, although I have never done this.