icloud account recovery

We had an iPhone stolen and the owner has no other 'trusted devices'. Being the resident apple tech support for the family Im trying to figure out how to recover the iCloud account.

The id and credentials are not an issue, its strictly the trusted device pin code going to the stolen phone so we cannot enter them. I have done the iforgot thing with loss of phone number as well as provided the credit card and phone # details on apple's recovery page and a contact phone # to send the instructions to.

The process gave me a nice 24 hours countdown claiming instructions would be sent to our specified recovery phone. Needless to say such notice was NOT received. I then redid the recovery procedure and am given a TWO DAY delay.

Is this typical? I worry about changing passwords in a timely manner.