[trog]

Is there a simple small claims court approach to this that would serve as a more convoluted way to actually access support from Google and other large companies?

I feel like if this happened to me I wouldn't even try getting in touch with Google support, having had enough experience myself and read enough of these stories to know it would be a frustrating waste of time.

But if there was a legal hack to do it that forced them to reply and cost them more money, even if it cost me some, it might be worth it in cases where the downsides (like losing your phone number of 15 years!!) are so high.