I feel for the victim and Google’s continued inability to provide customer service. Maybe the media attention will escalate this to someone who can fix it.
As an aside, I am relieved to see this is from the UK. Whenever sim swap stories end up on HN there are always comments about how it’s due to some unique incompetence of US-based cell service providers.
While it's no excuse for their subpar customer verification practices, cell carriers globally have been telling tech companies for years not to use control of a phone number as an auth factor, and they've been doing it anyway.
As an aside, I am relieved to see this is from the UK. Whenever sim swap stories end up on HN there are always comments about how it’s due to some unique incompetence of US-based cell service providers.