[AC Question]

I am changing carriers from ATT to Consumer Cellular and can't access my old Galaxy S (first model) because I guessed too many times at the swipe sequence. The real bummer is, the phone now will not accept my Google account log-in password or user name for whatever reason.

So, my question is: How does one access a smartphone under these conditions?

[SpookDroid]

You don't. Unfortunately if you set up a secure lockscreen and the credentials to access the phone are not provided, the phone stays securely locked. The only way to get it 'working' again is to do a factory reset, which deletes all data in the phone (the purpose of protecting it with a secure password).

You can reset your lockscreen password using Google's Device Manager through the Play Store, but if your phone is also not accepting your Google account credentials, maybe it has a different account loaded in or your password is not being entered correctly.