facebook sms auth catch-22
i got locked out of my fb account because i have login approval required via phone but no phone number defined on profile!!!!!!
This happened because i deleted my phone number from my public profile but i didnt mean to also delete it from the login security section. However, when i changed my public profile, their stupid site also deleted the phone number from the security login approval section too, while keeping active the mandatory login approval via sms.
That results in a catch-22 scenario, i cannot login until i get a sms with an auth code, but i cannot get the code since there's no phone number listed to send the sms to.
Since there's no phone number left to send sms to, and i don't currently have a device that's already authorized (i run ccleaner weekly to clear cookies and other stuff) that effectively means their system gives me no other way to recover my account and they get to sit on and steal my private data without letting me have any say in it.
At least with Google's 2-factor auth sms security i have some printed recovery codes i can use, but they didn't give me any recovery codes to print.
And they dont want to turn off the mandatory sms auth (or restore the previous phone number or convert it to email-based auth) for accounts that no longer have a phone number listed. It's impossible to send a sms to a non-existing number.
As to my government-issued id, i'm NOT going to send that, because OF COURSE i didn't use the name that the government uses for me but i used the name most of my friends know me by.