How can you reset security questions on an Apple ID when you have the password, but the security email is incorrect? There's a bit of a story, but the nub of the issue is we have forgotten the answers to the security questions on an Apple ID used for purchasing apps and music and can't reset the answers / questions due the security email address pointing to an account we don't control.



Here's the rest of the story...

Being the good son I am, I bought my mother an iPhone4s for her birthday. 
Now, don't get me wrong - my mother is fairly tech savvy considering her age. She runs her company's website, manages a Facebook community, and shares pictures of her grandsons via Gmail. But Apple Accounts is what stumped her.

She registered and signed up her Apple account using her iPhone, all nice and well. When she came to making her first purchase on the AppStore, she was asked the security questions. The questions were phrased in Hebrew, and for the life of her she couldn't remember the answers. To make matters worse, she did not know whether she answered them in Hebrew or English. 

This is where I stepped in. After trying out dozens of combinations, I resorted to resetting her security questions via her account page. But alas, the security email points an email account with a typo, rather than her main defined email account.

Still I did not lose hope, and sent an email to Apple support, which instructed me to contact their security team via the phone number in this page. The phone number provided for Israel does not work (I think it's disconnected or out of service).

I tried contacting Apple Support in the US, but they claim that the device, as identified by its serial number is not covered by Apple support. Great.

What can I do at this point? I'm at a loss.

I really don't want her to  open a different account. How can I help her salvage this one so she can answer the three security questions when they are asked for adding new devices or adding a credit card to the account?
Focus on iTunes billing support. When you need support on a device and the software support window is over, you pay for that help.

iTunes billing support is generally free since you can't spend more money in the store without a working account. You always have to get a support person to call you since people that have access to the store accounts are a very limited subset of all the support personnel.

Just be persistent - keep good notes, provide a phone number where they can reach you and have all the details of the account you can muster ready. Things like purchase history, credit card bills so you can tell the person the last two or three purchases made from that account in terms of date, transaction number and amount.

Once you've gotten the password reset, you can go back and fix all the security questions at https://appleid.apple.com

Worst case, you can add a new email address to the account, verify it, and then see if you can send a security question reset after that email is verified by Apple and in use for a week or so. Also - make more purchases from that account (free apps are fine) to show that the device that was registered to that account is still in use and still associated with the account even though the email address on file is new.