Locked out of icloud on new phone for 2 weeks. It's a brick now.

Is how it is with apple?

I've never heard of being locked out of something for 2 weeks. I can recover an online bank account login easier than this.

I have a new iphone, created a new icloud during the setup process. When I went to download my very necessary apps for work/life I had to put in my icloud password but it's wrong apparently. I forgot or misremembered my password.

Account recovery options:

• phone number: did that
• email: well, the email is the icloud email which I can't access (genius system)
• use other apple devices: this is my only one

So my new phone is essentially a brick. I can only call and text. So much of the function I very necessarily use my phone for are gone for two weeks.

I called apple, they said they can't do anything, it's the system. It could even be up to 45 days in some cases. I said well, what's up with the time frame. That's extremely weird to me. I've never been locked out of something for weeks on end.

Can I factory reset?

Can I just return it? I just bought it.

How do you regular apple users feel comfortable knowing you could possibly be signed out for several weeks. It seems like this is standard. Should I stick with apple? I don't have any other apple products and with the email being an icloud email, if I get locked out, I'd have to deal with this again.

Thank you.