I really hate to sound like a broken record. You know, the same thing over and over. Still, it seems no matter how many times I bring up this subject, either in the Question of the Week email or here in the blog, someone hasn’t followed my training.

Let me put this in simple terms: any account that you have (email, bank, brokerage, etc.) which uses a password and also allows you to input ways to recover that password, needs to have up-to-date info. If you changed cell phone numbers or you changed email accounts, you need to remove those items as password recovery backups and put the new information in.

Example: you have an email account that you set up a million years ago. Your email gets hacked or you purchase a new computer from us and we have to set up your email. The password you think works, doesn’t. Now, we have to reset the password. When we go to do that, the site wants to send a verification code to your cell phone. But, guess what? You no longer have that cell phone number. Besides panicking or setting up a new account, want can you do now? Finding a solution is a real pain, trust me.

What you need to do is to log-in to your accounts and make sure your password recovery backup information is correct. Do it now before it’s too late!

Oh, I know. You’re going to ask me, “How do I change my backup info?” Once again, it’s the Microsoft answer – It depends! It depends on the website. So, I can’t really tell you how here in this blog. However, I will suggest that you search for your specific site. For instance, you might search “change verification method XXXXXX” (without the quotes) where XXXXXX represents the site. Such as Gmail or Microsoft, etc. If you search and are still lost, you can always check with us!