Has anyone tried to sign in to their HMRC account recently?

I've been trying to sign into my husband's online account with HMRC  (I'm his personal representative) and they have some absolutely heinous new security measures thing going on. It's in beta and it's intermittent so I'm still hoping it'll go away but in case it doesn't, I've been trying to get through it.

First you have to sign up a phone no. I put our landline as we don't have mobiles. So now I can't even start to get through security without the phone ringing, it gives you a code to enter before you can proceed.

Next it asks for his UK passport details.  Of course he doesn't have one, so I call HMRC, they can't help, tell me to call online support...fair enough.
Call online support. They can't help, tell me to email...ok.
Email, get a reply in a day or so...not too bad...but....it's generic and gives me a link back to the HMRC website.

So having been round in a complete circle, but undefeated, I start again.
Call online support who explain that there is some sort of third party verification process that we can use instead and sent me here.

https://www.signin.service.gov.uk/start

So I started to go through the process there except it seems that due to my husband's circumstances, no UK passport, DL, mobile etc, that Experian  is the only one which may work.

Before I go on with the Experian thing, and worried that if this doesn't work, I will be forever unable to get in to the account, I thought I would ask here to see if anyone else is in a similar position or has any experience or advice to offer?

The current tactic is to keep skipping HMRC's suggestion that one should put in this extra layer of security.

The reason is that there is still pressure upon HMRC to make this whole process easier from the professional bodies. Some tax advisers say that 90% of their clients will refuse to go online, one quoted their client as saying "this HMRC nonsense I don't have time for".

One might think that tax agents will be able to see their client's computations and tax account online after this extra layer of security is added, but that too is delayed. Apparently HMRC find this too difficult, so they've suggested that third party software should - but not yet give the APIs necessary to write the code to do so. We probably have until September until HMRC loosens it up a little.

If you were to try for the Experian solution, remember that Experian gets its ID verification from DVLA and the Passport Office, so as you will still be going round in circles. I suggest you ring Experian first and ask them how they would check ID without this data.

Hi Rob, Thanks very much for taking the time to reply.

I'm a paper filer. It took me about 3 seconds to realize that the online system for filing was beyond me!

What I do like to use it for is to check if they have processed the return, the amounts involved etc.

That's good to know about Experian. Having heard that, I kind of feel that I have to try them, and if I do and fail, then at least I can feed back that their system actually doesn't work, not just that it sucks big time!

What I have found, through this is that they seem to have hired some more phone staff which is excellent news. I don't think I managed to get through once last year!