Can't play songs purchased under old AOL account after upgrade to Apple ID

I guess I've been abandoned by the iTunesStoreSupport. They basically told me what caused my problem and now will not return any of my emails.
This message is mostly to inform anyone who "upgrades" an old AOL iTunes account to an Apple ID to be sure to use the same credit card for the new Apple account that you used for your AOL account.
About 2 years ago I "upgraded" my AOL iTunes Store account to be an APPLE ID. When I did that, I used a different credit card for my Apple ID than I had been using for my old AOL account. Big mistake. At the time I had no idea it would cause problems later. I don't remember seeing anything at all warning me about the importance of that at the time. Now, according to Shwetha at iTunesStoreSupport it is "important to use the same credit card for a successful conversion".
Everything worked fine with iTunes for the past 2 years, but a month ago I upgraded my hard drive in my computer and promptly recycled my old hard drive. Another mistake on my part.
A few days later when I went to play a song purchased under the old AOL account I got stuck in that endless loop where I get the prompt "This computer is not authorized to play __. Would you like to authorize it?" Then it asks me to Upgrade my AOL account, but I already did that 2 years ago. I went ahead and attempted to upgrade the AOL account again, but I was still stuck in the endless loop. (note: I did successfully authorize the computer for my Apple ID with no problems.)
I followed every step in the Troubleshooting Guide "support.apple.com/kb/TS1389" including the step where I delete the SC Info folder, but I was still stuck in that endless loop of authorizing / deauthorizing.
Shwetha was very professional and did work with me pretty quickly through 3 rounds of emails and various troubleshooting attempts. But as soon as we realized that I had used a different credit card when upgrading the AOL account to an Apple account and that the conversion was not successful, they stopped replying to my emails. I guess I'm a lost cause.

I repeat here a post I made elsewhere: I hope that it helps you, and, if it does, please post the info elsewhere.
You can get this problem solved!
I encountered this problem yesterday, when I tried to play some songs in my ITunes library on a new computer; this is an ITunes library that I had moved from my old computer.
I called Apple Support, and the excellent Tech person began looking into the problem.
Meanwhile, while I was waiting for him, I Googled the problem (which I should have done first): lots and lots of people (I discovered) have bumped into this same frustrating problem.
Yes: the problem arises when you move to a new computer with an ITunes library that includes songs you bought, way back when, using an AOL ID.
Apple Support contacted ITunes. And ITunes tracked down my AOL account, and then issued me (that is, me and Apple Support) a new Apple ID. There are two or three additional steps; they are not hard, but you need the combo of help from Apple Support and ITunes. The key thing is getting the new Apple ID, which you must have, and which, once it has done its work, you then can ignore..
I can now listen to everything--and I am signed in to ITunes using my current, usual Apple ID.
Note: All of this would be easier and simpler for us if we could actually speak to someone at ITunes; the only way we can get to a "live" person there is by contacting someone at Apple Support.

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