AT&T eSIM activation issue

My wife got a new iPhone from the apple store last night. We took it home to activate it and the eSIM prompt from u/att asked for a phone number and billing zip code, and sent a text with a confirmation code, but the text did not go through and her old phone was traded in and wiped at the Apple Store. We went into the AT&T store to try to resolve this, they had us call 866-563-**** to address the issue with the fraud department, my wife answered all questions correctly and they still declined her and refused to activate the eSIM. I was told to come back and speak to the manager to open a ticket today, but I'm skeptical. We can't even log into her AT&T account, because it sends her a verification text to her phone number, which we can't access, because we can't get the eSIM activated. How do we resolve this, and what can we do differently next time?

[Edited by Moderator]