Account Recovery Keeps Resetting

Greetings Apple Family,

I am writing here after several frustrating attempts to enter Account Recovery has been reset or enters a loop.

Background: My wife forgot her Apple ID password for her iPhone and she has 2FA on. She does not have access to the email that the account was created with and the rescue email is no longer in existence. She does not have a CC on file, but rather has PayPal setup with Apple Pay. However, she does have the device, which is trusted, and can receive verification codes. Additionally, the Apple ID is SIGNED IN, but needs the password to download apps or update the iOS version.

She has tried for months and has entered Account Recovery, but each time we go to iforgot.apple.com, it gives her a different amount of time regarding the status information. It indicates that Apple will send instructions to the telephone number associated with the Apple ID. We called Apple Support and they told us to enter Account Recovery from the device, which we have done, repeatedly.

We gave it one more shot. Last night, the Account Recovery screen tells us that the status information will be available in 23 hours. 23 hours later, It says information will be available in 13 days. I checked a moment ago and the screen asks us to unlock the account. We have been here before and whenever we try to unlock the account with the phone number, we receive a verification code, and then because we do not have the password, it brings us to the start Account Recovery page again.

This is an endless loop. We were looking to do this so that we can upgrade to an iPhone X, but not being able to access an account where we pay for monthly iCloud storage along with the 10,000+ photos and videos of our family, is not okay.

Would anyone else here have any ideas? Any assistance would be greatly, greatly, appreciated.