Locked out of OCI Free Tier due to MFA reset deadlock — no card on file but support requires card verification
TL;DR: I’m locked out of an old OCI Free Tier account because MFA is required, but the MFA prompt seems broken (“null’s phone 3”). Oracle support says they need credit card details to reset MFA, but they also say there is no card registered on my account, so I can’t complete verification. I have a running VM/data I need to recover and can verify email, tenancy name, tenant OCID privately, phone number, IAM reference number, and resource details. Is there any private manual recovery path for this?
Hi everyone, I’m looking for advice on an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure account recovery / MFA issue.
I have an old OCI Free Tier account with a running VM and data I really need to recover. I’m locked out of the OCI Console because MFA is required, but the MFA prompt seems broken/weird — it refers to something like “null’s phone 3,” and I don’t believe I have a valid phone MFA factor connected.
I contacted Oracle Cloud chat support and asked for an MFA reset. They told me the MFA reset process requires verification using the email, tenancy name, identity domain, phone number, and the last 4 digits + expiration date of the credit card used during Free Trial registration.
The problem is that support also told me there is no credit card registered on my account. So I’m stuck in a deadlock:
Oracle requires card details to reset MFA.
Oracle says my account has no card on file.
Because there is no card on file, I physically cannot provide the required card details.
Because I cannot provide card details, support says they cannot reset MFA.
The agent said this is a Free Tier account, so they cannot escalate normally or create a support ticket. They recommended posting on the Oracle forum and said there may be Oracle employees there who can help route the issue.
I also found an official Oracle email from Jan 27, 2025 titled “Final Reminder to Review Changes to the Security Policy for OCI Console Sign-On Policy.” It references OCI IAM and the tenancy. This makes me think the issue may be related to Oracle’s enforced MFA / Security Policy for OCI Console sign-on, not just a normal user-configured MFA setup.
I can verify:
- Account email
- Tenancy / cloud account name
- Tenant OCID privately
- Identity domain
- Phone number
- Oracle IAM announcement reference number privately
- Details about resources in the tenancy / running VM
But I cannot verify a credit card if Oracle says there is no card on file.
Has anyone dealt with this before? Is there any private manual account recovery path for OCI Free Tier accounts where MFA is broken and no card is registered? Is there a specific Oracle team, forum category, or escalation path I should use?
I’m not looking for compute support — I just need account access / MFA recovery so I can get back into my tenancy or at least recover my data from the VM.
Any advice would be appreciated.