Temporary protection lock

So I am not the account owner, my mom is, but I pay the bill for the most part, and I usually have no problem accessing the account. I have a new phone coming on Monday evening and I just wanted to make sure that I am an authorized user so I can accept the phone when they deliver it, but I cannot access the account. I live in a different state than my mom and she is currently out of town for the weekend. I called customer support and they said they couldn't access the account on their end because a passcode or pin number or something had never been set up and my mom had to go in person to an AT&T store to do it. I am just wondering if I'm at a standstill here? Resetting the password doesn't work either. No matter what I do I cannot access the account on my own.