CARE CODE: 205.2 [LU003] - Suddenly happened to my account and cannot login

That’s crazy…I’m switching phones and need to get logged in.  This is my main mailbox.

To AT&T Administrators:

Q: Do you have this issue open as an official 'problem', and also in an escalated status due to the impact?

This happens to me now every time I try to access my account on the AT&T website. My first log in attempt causes the "Looks like you’ve tried to sign in unsuccessfully too many times. Recover your ID or reset your password to continue. CARE CODE: 205.2 [LU003]" So I reset my password and the very next day it happens again. Is there an AT&T solution yet as it looks like it is not just my problem. More and more I think it is time to switch my provider.

@rfmuller   There are no Yahoo/AT&T Administrators here.  Just us customers and the ATTHelp people who don't get to communicate with the network people either.

One would think that any two-bit network admin would eventually see that their network was under attack if what ATTHelp has said about "Bad Actors" is true.  What makes no sense is why that took 7 months to get discovered and now 3 weeks and they still can't use commonly used mitigation tools to stop it. 

For what it's worth, I tried the below suggested fix/workaround -- at a minimum, it'll let you sign back in w/out needing to change your password.  And if 2 weeks (13 days now) go by w/out a reoccurrence of the original issue, I guess I'll know that this account 're-synch' worked...either way I'll post the status here.

R.

The only way to fix this is to chat with an ATT customer care person and have them "re-sync" your account. Its a bug in their system and either they can't find it or they won't invest in fixing it. As long as you remember your password, they can fix this is two seconds once you get them to do it. go to

https://www.att.com/search/?q=chat&linkCnt=10&linkSelPos=NaN

Get on chat and tell them you have the 205.2 bug and they need to re-sync your account.

I continue to have this issue.  Charles Williams reached out via Direct Message but was just sent me a link to the same login screen.  Whenever I call him, he is not available.  This is truly a run-around...  Can someone help me get back into my account?

Typical ATTHelp DM 🐂💩.   No idea why they have to take things private and then tell you the same thing they tell people in public. 

If you can't get through the authentication process when you do the "Forgot Password" thing then I suspect what they don't want to tell you is that you aren't going to be able to access the account any more.

Yahoo/AT&T has sorta forced you into a Catch22 situation.  First, they apparently allowed "bad actors" to continuously attack these email accounts, thus causing the "too many attempts" lockouts.  Then their database of with the secret questions, cell numbers, last name, zip code data appears to be corrupted so even if you know the required data, it might still reject you.

At this point users such as yourself have no way to prove to Yahoo/AT&T that you are the actual owner of the email account.  Sticking to good security practices, they won't let you back in, but because so much of this is their fault they really should make exceptions and find a way.  Maybe they could ask a user some of the names of people who would be in the emails, for example.

I'm not holding out much hope that they'll make any exceptions, however.

Took rfmuller’s advice and I’m back into my email now.  Thanks!

We're here to address your email login concerns, @microcomp.

As it currently stands, we are aware that many of our customers are dealing with constant email lockouts. This is believed to be due to bad actors trying to fraudulently access our customer's email accounts, which in turn results in a lockout after they fail to access your account.

Our security team is aware of this issue, and we're continuing to block the IP addresses of those responsible, however we ask that you continue to reset your password as a workaround until the matter is fully resolved. We appreciate your patience with us in the meantime.

Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.

Jarod, AT&T Community Specialist

@ATTHelp  (Jarod):

Jarod, may you please confirm or deny the current solution that some of your colleagues are performing (email 'account re-synch') which mitigates the need to reset the account password?

"Get on chat and tell them you have the 205.2 bug and they need to re-sync your account."