My DH and his Apple ID

[Mykittensmittens]

My DH is (in the nicest sense) an absolute Luddite.

He has been ignoring messages on his phone asking him to input his Apple ID for months. Now he needs to stop avoiding as he needs an update and some of his apps, including banking, just won’t work.

however he can’t remember his password. His ‘verification’ phone number makes no sense -
it says enter the following verification phone number *45 (example). We’ve had and never had between us any number ending 45 that we can recall, with the exception of a landline many years ago. I’ve tried that landline and it says incorrect number.

is there a workaround? He’s going nuts and I’ve no idea what else we can do. We don’t live anywhere near an apple store (it would be a 100 mile round trip) but he’ll do it if he has to and has no other choice?

Have you tried the steps here ? support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201487

Yes he’s tried all those options - and every time he gets stumped by the phone number as he clearly only set that up as his recovery option. He no longer has access to the email associated with the ID.

Is there an option to answer security questions?

Try logging into iCloud on a laptop and select forgot password

I’ll give that a go now…