Referral links don't work for me after 90+ days of waiting

Little background. Shortly after I first subscribed in October I used a referral link because another user offered ingame money. I got the Jumpstart Bundle so all was fine. Since then it has been 98 days (checked via the ingame mail on one of my chars) and I'm currently unsubbed (also had to pause my sub during November but was subbed in December). I wanted to use the link of a friend but I'm not able to, it always says "this referral already exists".

I did some research and I found something that concerns me in the terms and conditions:

"New SWTOR players who participate in Friends of SWTOR who remain Free-to-Play players are not eligible to participate again."

Could it be that because I was already subbed and did technically not sub after using the link the system somehow thinks that I've stayed F2P and banned me from using another one? And if yes  how can I fix that?

My swtor username is: CaptainMetalTS