15-year-old me would be shocked at the current state of Blizzard

Granted, my situation is fairly unique. But it's been incredibly disappointing all the same.

I've been playing Blizzard games forever. I have my old Diablo 2 and LoD keys on my account. Same with WC3. I've had a WoW account since 2006. I have an ungodly amount of playtime on Diablo 3, Hearthstone, and Overwatch. I've bought D2R on Battle.net and Steam. I also bought Diablo 4 and it's first expansion. To say that they've made some of my favorite games is a gross understatement.

Like everyone else, I was excited to try out WoW Forever. But I've recently moved countries, gotten a new phone, and lost access to my authenticator. I submitted a ticket for it to be removed, and requested for my new phone number to be added as the new recovery number. I thankfully submitted a valid form of identification that sufficed for proof, so we didn't have to go back and forth over it. They removed my authenticator and my old number from my account.

I go to download and re-add my authenticator, but it's not recognizing my phone number as a post-paid number. I figured it could be because I had just changed my account region, so I give it some time. Two days later, I try to add it again. Same issue.

I try to apply my wife's phone number. Same issue. I try my brother-in-law's number. Same issue. So I reach out to support. I wait another three days for a reply. Their response is essentially "sorry, but there's nothing we can do." I've sent them proof that both my phone plan and my wife's phone plan are post-paid. Still nothing they can do.

This is insane to me. I'm effectively being forced to have an unsecured account because of some arbitrary system Blizzard has implemented to do... what, exactly? Combat bots? Combat cheaters? Those are both running rampant in their respective games, regardless. Meanwhile, genuine customers like myself are being punished for a small number of bad actors.

Moral of the story? Make sure to backup your authenticator, even if you have everything to get it removed. You might not be able to get it back.