Waiting time for Apple password reset is ridiculous!!!

My wife's iPhone suddenly wouldn't accept her fingerprint and when she entered the passcode in for the first time it locked her out for 5 mins (very odd!!). Then after 5 mins tried again but the locked out time just got worse and worse until it was 60 mins. Eventually asked me to help out and this is when I tried to reset the passcode but this is when things got even worse because the iCloud password would not work. We assumed we had possibly forgotten it, so tried various combinations of what it could possibly be and nothing worked. This is when things got even worse because resetting the iCloud password required her to be logged into two devices (which she wasn't). I called Apple and they advised me to wipe the iPhone and reset it. But this meant the password still didn't work and was then prompted to go through the complete password reset which meant we had to wait 24 hours. Apple support said after 24 hours she would get an sms telling her what to do. So 24 hours later and no sms I went through the motions again to find the 24 hour wait now said wait 4 days!!! So I called Support again and they tried all the things I had already tried to reset the password and then simply said we had no choice but to wait 4 days. So we are now left with 14 hours to go, and let me tell you this has been the most painful 4 days ever. She relies on certain apps for work and none of these can be installed now. She is literally unable to do any work and Apple are so adamant that they can do nothing to help. I find this wait ridiculous and unrealistic. If you forget a password on other platforms it's so much easier to reset it. Why is this so difficult!!!!!