[PC] Battlefield 2142 Invalid Key.

Hello All,
I have been playing Battlefield 2142 for about 7 months and when i first created an account it worked out great.

Today my friend purchased Battlefield 2142. As he got home it installed fine (No problems with Key) and the patches installed without any problems.

Now the problem is that he tried making an account and most of the usernames was taken. So he tried many with no luck, after that he checked his email inbox and had discovered that EA had sent many 'Congratulations you have successfully registered' notifications.

After that he had thought his account was registered but when he tried to log in he received the error "The CD key is invalid" and "The cd key has already beeen registered with an account". This is a brand new LEGAL Copy from Jb Hi-FI.
I have looked through out many forums all giving the same possible solution which is only for US products and people who have purchased this game off the EA Link Program.

I'm guessing someone has used his Key already, so i tried logging in with his account with no luck, so i gave him my account details and can log in perfectly.
Now this could simply be solved by returning the game to Jb Hi-Fi but i highly doubt they will accept it back due to the fact that its online.
We could contact the EA support line but we not gonna pay $2.95 a min so we can wait for 20 mins.

Does anyone have an idea on how to fix this?

Thanks In Advance.

EDIT: As i stated in the start of the Post were my friend selected a name and is said it was taken, well that was kaytol00 and when he checked his email he got an email saying that he registered Kaytol00 when it was taken. So basically EA has messed up and if replacing the game from the store (IF its even possible) will likely to arise again with his new Key