Phone number shouldn't be required

tehuti88 • 20 July 2022 at 1:10 AM

I know I'm yelling into the void but today for the first time, to claim a prize I was able to claim last year without any issue, I needed to provide a mobile number and verify my account via text message. This made me angry but I wished for the prize, so I had to use my mother's mobile number, since I have no phone of my own. (For those who might doubt, I'm disabled and rarely leave the house, plus suffer extreme social anxiety, so I have no need of a phone--nobody to call, no reason to call anyone, too scared to call anyone anyway.) I can just hope she won't be getting charged for any further texts as a result of this.

Accounts can be verified by e-mail and I don't understand why that couldn't have been an option. Especially regarding how young many of the users are here, at least I assume, one would think that e-mail verification would be an option? What of other users who don't have a phone? Like 97% of Americans may have one, but that means 3% don't.

I also have to admit, this is the first virtual pet/game site I've needed to provide a phone number to. Seems rather a casual site to require such a thing.

I don't see anyone else complaining about this so maybe I'm very well the only person on this entire site to be upset about it but I just thought I'd suggest it. Seems easy enough to verify your (main) account via e-mail with some sort of unique link or something, rather than punish those of us who don't have phones of our own by making us miss out on prizes (and possibly other site functions in the future).

That's all, I expect this to go nowhere and I don't plan to read any responses since I don't feel like arguing. Just a futile attempt at suggestion for next year's birthday prize.

sparklefox • 20 July 2022 at 6:19 AM

@tehuti88 - I'm a little annoyed by it too, so you're not the only one. Currently have no way of verifying myself either, and I had a feeling back when the SMS feature was new that the anniversary CC gift would require it due to the "main accounts only" rule. Stopped me from looking forward to it since I knew I wouldn't be able to verify myself in time.

wonder404exe • 20 July 2022 at 8:18 AM

Yeah my mom wont buy me a phone bcs i lose thing all the time but this CC thing is driving me nuts i have to ask me mom again of i can get a phone number to use on here

cranberrycat1 • 20 July 2022 at 9:30 AM

I hope Ian could change it to an email I wasn’t the most comfortable giving my phone number

allydogfog • 20 July 2022 at 11:38 AM

i agree though because i think eggcave/ other pet games are mostly played by children and most of them dont have any phones..

its disapointing if you would need to feed endlessly for ~two months or more (for me) to earn 5m ec and work another week to find someone to transfer ec to cc. and when its eggcaves birthday and you can just get it for free but its just out of reach because silly eggcave needs a phone verification

snowywinter • 20 July 2022 at 11:41 AM

To anyone else reading the thread (since I now see more replies)...

So many of us were still waiting on an answer from staff... hoping that an alternate solution would have been found by now.
Some people simply can not afford a cell phone, don't have access to one, don't live in an area with any cell reception, etc.
(Personally, my story reads almost identical to tehuti's (except i do call one person. ...but even when i thought my house was on fire, I couldn't call 911. Had to call that one person. So I was planning on getting rid of cell service altogether when mine will inevitably no longer work at the end of this year.)

Meanwhile some people in the blog comments when this change was announced suggested chat apps that can work on desktop. (Which the staff said *should* work.) (That's great... for people who use them, or have any inclination to download them.) It could afford people a degree of the privacy they are looking for. (Sort of. Still giving someone your phone number.) And it works for those with only a landline.
Update: New blog post comments are showing a lot of problems cropping up for people trying this route
Newer Update: It went smoothly for me.

I'm thinking of trying Tello. (cell service provider.) They have plans for less than $10/month. No requirements for being on special assistance programs.
(I know that probably only helps about a third of the people with the issues here, but I thought it may help for those where cost is the issue.)
(And I figure personally, $10/mo isn't too bad for a service I barely use. At least I'll still have something "in case.")

Speaking of which... I never did get a reply directly to if this would work with landline. (Since I used to be able to receive SMS on mine.)

email is too easy for people to cheat with... but it would be really nice if there was an alternative for the sms verification.

heatherm19 • 20 July 2022 at 1:53 PM

My first instinct is the defend Eggcave, because I *do* understand from their point of view why something like this may be needed going forward, to combat bots and multi-account abuse that's already been an issue.

However, it does feel like they kinda dropped the ball on this one. We got an initial blog post about the verification and future free-CC feature, and then.... Nothing. We haven't gotten any details at all about what features are actually going to require this new verification (I see a lot of people were very surprised it's being required for the bday CC now!) or any follow-up information for people who don't have access to a cell phone. I feel like we should have been given more information, and more time, before this started being required for something that users have been getting for years without needing verification.