account recovery

my wife forgot her passcode, and also forgot her Appleid password. So the whole thing went into Account recovery. That is supposed to last 4 days. Contacted support. They told me to reinstall the phone. When it was reset, was asked to use Apple id and password there (because Find my phone was on before reinstall). So catch 22. Contacted Apple support again. They cant do anything when it is in recovery mode, even though Identity can be confirmed on the phone number (put the SIM card in another phone)..... This is an absurd situation, to have to wait 4 days even though you can verify your phone number...