For those that have a new phone number or have changed their number - sometimes you might have your old phone number in your payment profile (or something along those lines). That number might still be used by Google even when you change your number. So you can end up in a situation where you update your recovery phone number, but that old number still shows up. It took me some time at a point to get rid of this one to ensure that it works.

Also, 2FA will still trigger even when you turn it off. I had turned off 2FA because I don't care about this account and because I kept having issues with it due to the countries I lived in over the years. I logged into a machine that got a fresh install and got prompted to go through 2FA and get a text. But this was turned off.

So I'm sorry to hear about this, it's a real big issue and I ask everyone here who cares about privacy and who cares about a better tech environment to push their friends and family or followers to move towards more privacy respecting alternatives that HAVE support, that WILL assist you if something like this happens. Even in a worst case scenario (all emails being lost), getting back access to the account itself can make a huge difference... So please, support those who hit on issues if you can somehow and promote alternatives for those who can afford them (and most people in the west will generally be able to afford the 1USD/1GBP/1EUR a month some services will charge).