Mark2
Novice II
Status: New

I manage multiple accounts for my family.  Specifically, I pay the bills for them.  Today, Visible forced me to enable MFA when I logged into the accounts to pay the bills.  (Auto-pay is NOT an option that I'm willing to do).  Now, when I log into my mom's account, her phone gets texted with the MFA code.  Unfortunately, she lives in another state, and I'm not willing to call her every time I need to manage her account and ask for the MFA code (especially not if I'm doing things at 2AM!)

 

I need to opt-out permanently from the MFA process or (preferably) set it up to use email or an alternate phone number.  Neither option appears to be available.  I spent almost and hour chatting with a Visible agent, explaining the situation.  She said that it MFA could be disabled permanently, but it would require a new SIM (or eSIM).  I'm skeptical that this exercise wouldn't just result in me being forced to re-enable MFA after I get the new SIMs.   I said fine, we'll try it.  Please send me new SIMs for the phones.  She couldn't do that -- and I needed to login to each account and start the chat again with a new agent to get a new SIM for that account.  (I was already logged into my account, BTW!)  Bottom line: after wasting an hour of my time, my problem is not resolved, and I don't have much confidence that it will be.

Visible: please allow accounts to opt-out of MFA, or have an alternative solution such as I outlined above.  You will lose all my business if this is not an option quickly made available -- especially after forcing MFA on me without ever notifying me in advance that it was coming.

 

I don't think my use-case is rare.  Am I the only person who manages another person's Visible account (such as a spouses, child's and/or parent's account)?  What about paying for a child's account who's away at college? 

 

Visible, the ball is in your court.

7 Comments
Magsss
Novice

I am in the same situation! I manage and pay for multiple visible accounts for my family and I travel a lot out of state. My credit card is attached to all these accounts so why can't I use the email + password as the 2FA?? I am considering switching bcoz this is insane. VERY UNHAPPY!!!!!!!!

jcp
Novice

Absolutely! See last few comments in: https://community.visible.com/t5/Feedback/Visible-Please-add-2FA-Two-Factor-Authentication/idi-p/194....

 

This is also a prepaid service where it is not that uncommon to let the service expire sometimes if/as needed. Then it's a hassle to try to get in the account to pay. They really did not think how 2FA should work. It should always be optional, not mandatory, and the user should have an option for the method.

 

I talked to their customer service and they did not care one bit when I mentioned this might lead me to switch service as it is an unnecessary hassle. They actually gave me instructions on how to leave, haha. I must say I found this to be somewhat refreshing since other places can make it hard to try to cancel  a service but they were actually quite helpful about it.

EricssonGH337
Novice III

I have said this and I will say it again, sending the 2nd factor to the same phone number is beyond ridiculous. You should have options to receive it on email. For the reason like OP and for the situation like me which I believe happens more often. 

I damaged my phone so I could not have access to it. How did I order a new phone? Getting into my account on a computer and then where did Visible send the 2nd factor? To the broken phone. And of course I would go ask the Live Agent to waive the MFA and they sent authentication to the registered email which they wouldn't need to do (save their personnel time and money) if they had done it on a first place.

And here is the (not so) funny thing, when you chat with Live Agent on PC you will be prompted to login to your account. The website will send the 2nd FA to your phone. You will then type in that code onto your computer. Then when you start to chat the Live Agent will ask you to verify your email by sending yet ANOTHER FA to your EMAIL!!!

Who decided these money wasting rules??

DeanKevin64
Ace II

There is now the option to "trust this device" even on a laptop/desktop as long as you don't delete or clear history from that laptop/desktop. I have 2 different browswers set up as trusted devices and one will never get the history deleted.

EricssonGH337
Novice III

Yeah I'm sure you've never heard people complaining about that "trust this device" thing. 

DeanKevin64
Ace II

 No 

EricssonGH337
Novice III

Crawl out from your rock