Kos led me to Bluesky -- and then tech problems. Looking for advice from community

... this is where the problem starts

I “fired” toxic Twitter-X years ago for the same reasons everyone else does.  I wasn’t really looking for a replacement (thinking they were all going to end up poisoned) but was convinced to try Bluesky by the links appearing in the daily Kos diary Russian stuff blowing up...” 

I’ve run into what appears to be a long-running known bug, and wondered if anyone in the Kos community had devised a workaround or discovered a secret Bluesky support address that was actually monitored by humans.  New members are not allowed to reply or post until they have completed a one-time verification. 

Verification requires clicking on a link embedded in an incoming e-mail or by entering a one-time code sent b y e-mail.  The problem is I am not getting the e-mail (apparently I am one of many).  I have done all the obvious things… searched all my folders for anything from what Bluesky support tells me is the verification e-mail address ([e-mail]), whitelisted this address on my e-mail client and at my ISP mail server, and nothing. 

I am getting e-mail from Bluesky support (not only a different address, but actually a different domain ([e-mail]), but that appears to be IA with no escalation to humans, and is not helpful at all when their initial advice (which I followed) fails to solve the problem… they just re-send their initial response as if it is new information.

Anyone else had this problem?  Anyone else solved it?