That was supposed to have been a Zoom training session, I suppose I did help the other bloke with screen & app sharing but in the main part we were trying to regain control of his iCloud account.
Stupidly (his own words) he had clicked an email link that looked legitimate & thought he’d reset his iCloud password. In fact, he’d given access to a scammer , the realisation that something was amiss was when he could no longer access his Contacts which are all in iCloud.
We went through the password recovery process three times, the first two occasions the connection timed out & the new password(s) didn’t take.
I suggested he start the 3rd attempt with a new sheet of paper to write down his new password so he didn’t get it confused with the earlier attempts.
This all worked & we eventually got the 2-Factor authorisation 6-digit number to appear on an iPhone. Entering that into the Mac worked. And just to be certain he went back to the Apple ID support page, entering his new credentials. Once he noted they were accepted, he then checked his Keychain passwords in Safari, cleaning out the no-longer-working passwords in the process.
Great relief was expressed by both parties.