Something is happening with Verizon’s login system, and I don’t know what it is.
My issues started sometime last week, when I tried to log into my account. It rejected the password that had worked with the generic explanation that “The information you entered does not match the information we have on file.” I tried resetting my password and thought that had worked until my login attempt with the new password yielded the same error message.
I put that aside for a day or three–I’ve never used my Verizon e-mail for anything, so there wasn’t any particular urgency to this problem–and then resumed my debugging Saturday. My login attempts once again failed, so I tried Verizon’s tech-support chat.
Over the next 30 minutes in the chat and then over the phone, Janine and I went through another password reset or two that also failed to work. She then suggested I try using a different username and a temporary password in Chrome instead of Safari; that got me as far as a mandatory password-change screen that took me to an error message reporting that this username was invalid.
I did what anybody would in this situation, complain about it on Twitter. The @VerizonSupport account promptly responded and asked me to send them a DM. I needed four to sum up my situation. They replied by sending me a link to a chat room–not the same as before, but a “Social Media Support” room.
(Memo to Verizon Web coders: If you need to add a dialog advising the user that “The Popup blocker prevented the chat window opening,” you’re doing it wrong.)
Ricardo seemed a little more empowered than Janine. He confirmed that he was seeing the same errors as me, said he’d opened a trouble ticket, and provided a temporary password. He then followed up with a phone call and said I’d get a numeric PIN in a voicemail message, then called again later to verify that I’d received the PIN and to ask me to try logging in again.
That failed once again in Safari–but in Chrome I was finally able to log in, reset my password and then have normal access to my account.
I’ve since gotten five robocall messages on my home phone from Verizon informing me that a change was made to my account and that I should call if I had not made that change; thanks, Vz, but I’m good.
What’s completely bizarre is that four days later, I still can’t log in via Safari on my iMac, while Chrome and Firefox are no problem–and so is Safari on my MacBook Air. I’ve tried using a private-browsing window for my Safari login, deleting all Verizon cookies, and deleting all Verizon cookies and using a private-browsing window, and none of those things have worked.
I have no idea what could cause all this, but I do know this not how Web logins are supposed to work. I’ve asked Verizon PR for an explanation but haven’t gotten much beyond this vague explanation: “From what we can tell, your issue resulted from logins attempted while our work to augment our secure authentication platform was underway.”
I also know from the Twitter replies above that I’m not the only person experiencing this issue. If you are too, please tell me about your experience and, if you’ve gotten the problem solved, how you went about that.
Rob Pegoraro 
Rob, I have had exactly the same problem with Verizon on Safari for several months. I went through password resets, the long phone conversation with tech support, all the other steps you have detailed, but I still can’t log in on my MacBook Pro. If I use Chrome, I get in without a problem. I know the block is something on this laptop because my old iMac (a 2006 model running on Snow Leopard) is not affected. Even stranger, there were a few days after I deleted the Verizon login information somewhere (possibly in Keychain Access, but I’m not sure) when the block went away. But then it came back, and all subsequent efforts have been futile. I don’t even try any more with Safari. However, I am relieved to know I am not the Lone Ranger. If you can’t figure it out, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Here’s an update on what I said in the message above: I had said that my iMac was not having the same problem at the MacBook Pro. But yesterday it did, so I tried to deal with it. I went to Safari Preferences>Privacy and clicked the Details button to get the long list of cookies etc. I scrolled to the verizon items and deleted both verizon.com and verizon.net. Then I quit Safari, reopened it, and was able to log in to Verizon webmail. However, when I tried the same steps on the MacBook Pro, it still didn’t work. Go figure.
My problem, exactly as Rob described, has nothing to do with webbrowsers. A week ago my outlook email started asking for my Verizon password [and so did my husband’s and my son’s Outlook]. I tried to log in to webmail but could not log in to My Verizon as my password was rejected with the same screen as Rob got. I called Verizon and after 2 hours — including being transferred twice with long waits incurred — we were given temporary passwords to get into our accounts and then change our passwords and give a security question [which we already had set up.] Within 1 day my husband’s password stopped working; my sons stopped within 2 days and mine stopped after 6 days. I called Verizon again today and was kept on hold for 25 minutes then got through to someone who told me (1) that my phone number isn’t a Verizon number [it is and has been for 17 years!!!!] He couldn’t cope with my address even when spelt out using alpha bravo charlie delta etc. and then when I gave him my account number said he couldn’t get up my account details. After an hour of him talking without mute to the person in his neighboring cubicle asking for advice, at one stage getting up and walking across the call center to get his supervisor; he still could not get up my account details. He insisted he could not transfer me to his supervisor nor to anyone else and that I should ring back. I refused and insisted he transfer me to his supervisor Eventually, I was told his supervisor would ring me back: no one rang back. I then got onto the online chat. That technician wanted to take control of my computer which I refused as the problem is at Verizon’s end. I pointed out she could replicate my problems by trying to log in to My Verizon. She too had to give me temporary passwords and I had to log in and reset the passwords and set the security questions again. This technician had the cheek to tell me to make sure I remember the passwords this time. I pointed out that Outlook doesn’t “forget” passwords and that Verizon needs to fix the problem and not blame the user. In total 3 hours tied up with Verizon today to get the problem resolved — but for how long?
Have you tried going to the developer menu and changing the user agent?
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/AppleApplications/Conceptual/Safari_Developer_Guide/TheDevelopMenu/TheDevelopMenu.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007874-CH7-SW5
Sorry about the page-widening link.
Rob,
Same issue with Firefox but not with I.E. I have two accounts due to two separate residences. The MD account doesn’t work on Firefox but VA account does. I’m not spending the time with Verizon to fix it. Enjoy your writing and miss your WAPO work. Regards, Bo Robinson
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I’ve had the same Verizon login problems since last week, and there is clearly a security problem at Verizon.
I tried to resolve the issue several times by repeatedly reseting Safari, removing cookies with several tools, etc. but it only worked sporadically.
Unbelievably, I was finally able to access my email directly from Google. The steps were:
1. Repeated failed attempts to login (error message to “please update your security info” so did not login or logout of account
2. Went to Google and typed “Verizon login.” Clicked on Search results for subheading “Verizon login” under verizon.com
3. The Google page link took me directly to my email inbox, without logging in!
So Verizon’s system is apparently recognizing logins while simultaneously generating error messages and blocking direct access to email. This means your account is actually open when you give up repeatedly trying to login, hence the security hole when you don’t logout.
I was so stunned at this massive security breach that I called Verizon immediately. Tech Support said they would fix the problem, but the fix only lasted one day. Initially the login failure was only on my MacBookPro/Safari, but now involves both Firefox and Safari on both my laptop and my iMac.
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Same issue here. Vz said the problem originated from their higher security two step authentication that was in progress. Several resets later I was presented with several images, asked to pick one and told it would display while I put in my pw. OK, it’s a nice image but…how does it help me? I know who I am. I guess it was designed to give me a visual confirmation I was attempting to enter my Vz site?? This I know, that’s why I am trying to login. If it is for security I should have to choose the correct image to proceed. For a few weeks the image showed up as expected on the right side of the pw entry screen and…ta-da, now it’s gone. It was a nice picture I selected, I kinda miss it.
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How can you get a pin# if you can’t sign into your EMAIL!
Same problems here using Firefox. I am not as tech savy as you folks. What am I to do?
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