I finally set up 2FA on my bank account after laughing at my brother for 3 years
My brother kept bugging me to turn on two factor for my bank since 2021 and I told him it was overkill for a guy with $800 in checking. Then a guy at my gym in Tampa got hit for $2,400 from a SIM swap and his bank dragged their feet for 6 weeks before paying him back. The part that got me was when he said the thief called Verizon pretending to be him and walked out with a new SIM in 15 minutes. Took me 10 minutes to set up an authenticator app and now I feel stupid for waiting. Has anyone dealt with a carrier locking down SIM swaps, because my phone rep acted like I was speaking another language.
That Verizon rep either didn't know or didn't want to deal with it, because carriers absolutely have a lock you can ask for. I had T-Mobile put a port freeze and a SIM swap lock on my line back in 2022 after a coworker in Brandon got hit the same way. You have to call and specifically ask for account takeover protection, and they add a PIN that has to be given in person at a store with your ID. My rep tried to sell me on their paid monitoring thing first, which does nothing to stop a swap, so I had to push back and ask for the free lock by name. The catch is the lock also slows you down if you legitimately need a new SIM, but that's a small price for not losing your rent money in 15 minutes. Call back and get someone else, because the first rep clearly wasn't trained on it.