Thieves took their iPhones. Apple won't give their digital lives back

Somebody signed up for an Apple account with my email address, apparently before they required email confirmation. There's no way for me to remedy this, so I'm apparently just supposed to deal with somebody else using my email for an Apple ID. Their support treated me like an idiot for an annoyingly long amount of time.

Support: "Sir I can't give you access to somebody else's account. Do you understand that?"

Me: "I don't want access, I just want to use my own email. That's my email address on that account"

Support: "If that's your email address, then that's your account sir"

Me: "No it's not my account"

Support: "Then what's your problem?"

Apple are the only company this has happened with (people commonly use my email address for things, but there's always a way to reclaim it)

If your digital life exists in a phone, and you don't have your own backups, who is at fault?

If you care for or rely on your data, don't let companies be responsible for it.

Once they have unlocked the stolen iPhone, the next step is often to change the password tied to a user’s Apple ID, making it harder to locate. And if a thief is thorough, they may create a “recovery key”: a random, 28-character code that is meant to help people regain control of their Apple account in case others take over.

Unlocking a stolen iPhone? How are they bypassing the lock?