Advice? Steam account was linked to a random EA account.

I purchased FC26 on Steam on 9/18, but when I attempted to launch the game, I received a message stating that my Steam account was already linked to an EA account I didn’t recognize (some random email address from one of those sketchy email domains).

After contacting support, a representative helped me gain access to this random EA account by using my email address (already associated with my real EA account). They changed the email on my actual EA account to [edit: email address removed] in the process (and I lost access to it, of course).

While I was then able to launch the game (finally) using this EA account that I was given access to, I discovered that the account has 2 bans from previous games - the support rep didn't tell me this. Now I can't connect to EA servers to play FC26. The worst part, Steam won't refund it since they think I redeemed the ultimate perks (which I didn't).

I tried unlinking my steam account but nothing happens when I accept the warning prompt - it just remains. There's also a random XBox account that can't be unlinked (I don't really care about that).

What does everyone suggest here? Support is telling me to appeal the bans (which is crazy, because it wasn't even me that was cheating). I don't want to wait weeks to months to play this game I purchased