Completely locked out by 2FA requirement

This week, I decided to install The Sims 4 after a gap of few years, and bought a few add-ons that looked good while I was installing the game.  That proved to be a mistake, because the other account - this is a new one - was set up with an email account that ceased to exist in 2022.

"But surely," you might say, "you could still log in to that account, since you were able to buy things for it?"  And indeed you would be right - but every feature of that account (including the ability to add a backup email, or specify a telephone contact, or verify my age, and now even logging in) has been locked away behind two-factor authentication that points to that old, defunct email address.  Those 2FA messages are all vanishing into the void, with no domain to receive them.

"Ah, then certainly EA's fine helpdesk staff can help you," I can hear you cry - and, indeed, all four of the people I've contacted so far have been good, helpful people.  Alas, however, they are only allowed to follow a standardised set of questions which ask things such as "what IP address do you normally play from" - not the most useful of questions after moving house and having to change ISP in the last four years.  Whatever answers I give, I'm told that at some point I have failed the test and that no further help can be given in that case.  Franz Kafka would smile at all this, I'm sure.

This can't be good for Electronic Arts itself, I fear:  I doubt that I can be the only person who has bought goods and then found themselves unable to use them, with the ability even to request a refund locked away behind - you guessed it - a 2FA requirement!

So, dear reader, if you know of any way in which I can unlock my old account and regain access to my things, I would be quite glad to spend a few evenings enjoying The Sims again.

One lives in hope.