A▮▮AuthorityStuck

Case 04 · Motus problem file

Locked out of Login.gov, locked out of Motus

STUCK  Readout first. Full fix below. This page asks for nothing — no login, no PIN, no email.

What it means
There is no Motus password. Motus opens with your Login.gov account, so a Login.gov lockout, a lost authenticator, or a forgotten password locks you out of your USDOT record, your filings, and your updates all at once.
Whose side the fix is on
Yours (Login.gov's process), unless the account email belongs to someone else
First move
Use Login.gov's own password reset and account-recovery flow at login.gov. If the account is temporarily locked after failed attempts, wait out the lockout window instead of retrying — retries can extend it.
Attach first
For FMCSA-side problems after you're back in: your USDOT number and the email on the company record.
Realistic wait
Self-service recovery: minutes to a day. If the Login.gov email belongs to a former employee and you cannot recover it, the fix moves to FMCSA (company-official email correction) and takes weeks.
Escalation ladder
Login.gov help/recovery → back into Motus → if the email mismatch blocks claiming, AskFMCSA ticket for company-official email correction with ownership proof.

Sound familiar?

What's actually happening

FMCSA tied Motus to Login.gov deliberately: one federal identity for every carrier record. That makes the front door stronger and makes Login.gov the single point of failure — carrier reports through 2026 put simple lockouts and lost-authenticator cases among the most common Motus access problems, just behind claim failures.

The fix, in order

  1. Separate the two problemsIf you know the email and it's yours, this is a Login.gov recovery: reset the password, use a backup authentication method, or complete Login.gov account recovery. If the email is not yours, skip to step 4 — no reset flow will help.
  2. Respect the lockoutAfter repeated failed attempts, Login.gov restricts sign-in for a window. Wait it out. Repeated retries during the window are the most common way carriers turn a short lockout into a long one.
  3. Rebuild authentication once you're inAdd a second authentication method (a second factor you control) so one lost phone never locks the company out again. For a company record, the company official should hold the recovery methods personally.
  4. If the account belongs to a former employeeYou cannot recover someone else's Login.gov account, and you should not try. The FMCSA-side fix is a company-official email correction: an AskFMCSA ticket with ownership proof (articles of organization, EIN letter, your ID) asking FMCSA to update the official email on the record to yours, then claim with your own Login.gov.

Read the label

Carrier-reported, not in FMCSA's guides: owners who regained access fastest treated it as two tickets, not one — Login.gov recovery for the identity, FMCSA ticket for the record — worked in parallel instead of waiting on one before starting the other.

Questions carriers ask about this one

Is my Motus password the same as my Login.gov password?

There is only a Login.gov password. Motus has no separate credentials — which is also why this site, and any legitimate service, will never ask you for it.

Login.gov says my account is locked. How long?

Lockout windows are Login.gov's, not FMCSA's, and retrying during the window can extend them. Wait, then use the reset/recovery flow once. If recovery fails, Login.gov's help channel is the next step — FMCSA agents cannot unlock a Login.gov account.

The only Login.gov account for our company was our dispatcher's, and she quit. What now?

That is the email-mismatch problem: open an FMCSA ticket to correct the company-official email to the owner's, with ownership proof attached, then claim the record under the owner's own Login.gov. Expect weeks, and claim before your next deadline forces the issue.

This problem, fully worked

The free readout above tells you where you stand. The Playbook works this case end-to-end: the expanded walkthrough, the copy-paste ticket template with the exact fields FMCSA requests, and the escalation scripts for when the queue stalls. The two-track recovery worksheet (identity track + record track in parallel), the company-official correction ticket template, and a prevention checklist so a staffing change can never lock the company out again.

Get the Fix-It Playbook — $49  See everything in the Playbook →

Included in the $49 Fix-It Playbook — one-time payment, every problem, every template. Not a filing service: you stay in control of your own record.

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