Lost everything due to double ID issues...!

An Apple Account (formerly known as an AppleID) is a unique user account. Using multiple Apple Accounts for data and services runs the very real risk of encountering issues such as that encountered.

Insofar as Apple is concerned, the bona-fide account owner will retain access to the email address that identifies the Apple Account. It is the responsibility of the User to maintain and update the Apple Account as life's many changes occur - such as changing email address. An Apple Account can be easily updated when necessary.

If you lose access to the email address that identifies your Apple Account, you can completely lose access to any data associated with the Account. Using a business email address for personal use, whilst perhaps convenient at the time, is unwise - as you have now discovered.

As is, you have encountered an insurmountable problem. Without access to the email address that identifies your account, you cannot complete the Apple Account recovery process. To Apple, you are indistinguishable from someone that is attempting to access an Apple Account that does not belong to them.

Unless you have an independent backup of your photos and other media, the data is unrecoverable.

This issue is that you cannot clearly demonstrate that you are the owner of the Apple Account - as you neither have (a) the correct Account Password or (b) access to the email account so as to update the Apple Account with an email address to which you do have access.

Bottom line...

You can't demonstrate to Apple's satisfaction that you are the bona-fide owner of the Account. As such, Apple will not allow access to data for whom ownership cannot be proven.

Further debate is going to change nothing. Contributors here, myself included, have no influence over Apple or its processes whatsoever.

Your only options are to pursue your argument with Apple Support - or accept that data associated with the Apple Account, that you cannot demonstrate is yours, is now beyond reach.

Whilst I take in board everything you’ve said, I could perhaps understand it more if I felt that I was in some way trying to have some advantage in having ‘two’ Apple ID’s where nothing could be further from the truth. I have never been aware that I even had two, particularly since I left employment of the Bank in 2020. I guess I could bounce this back to Apple and ask them whey they have continued to charge me 99p a month since at least 2020 to store data that I have no access to and ask them why there monthly confirmation invoices are not bouncing back to them as the business e-mail I used is clearly no longer in use. Ultimately it’s an absolute nonsense that a company like Apple can not help a client to resolve a problem that is clearly not a breach of any data protection issues. They are charging me on a debit card in my name which is registered at the same address as the one on my ‘real’ Apple ID. My data is out there somewhere….what’s so difficult in allowing me back access to it…?

So the fact that the e-mail address is my name @ my old company name and the payment for it is coming out of a bank account in the same name as the e-mail address from a debit card that is registered to the same postal address that is listed for the ‘real’ Apple ID isn’t enough for them…? I would also be able to let them know virtually everything that is stored on there…down to diary entries, photographs and videos. It’s a complete nonsense.