Darth Hater

So let me explain my situation. Back in August, when SWTOR had a free trial, I decided to try it out. I kinda liked it and made about 3 characters.

So this past week, I decided, Hey. SWTOR went F2P, how bad can it be?
Oh boy was I wrong.
I logged into my old account, and discovered that my old characters were gone! Of course I was devastated, but I moved on and created a new character. I leveled a Trooper all the way up to 16 and made her a Vanguard. During the way, I decided to purchase some Cartel Coins, so that I could access some of the Preferred status things. 
Yesterday is when everything went to hell for me. I logged on and boom! Preferred status. 
"Okay, Cool" I thought. When I got past that screen and into the character select screen, the characters from the trial were there. My level 16 Vanguard was gone. I started freaking out, and I closed the game, hoping that she would pop back up when I logged in again. I was wrong, she was gone.
Of course, I filed a ticket, but being a preferred player, the ticket said to contact customer service via telephone.
I just got off the phone with Customer support, and being a Preferred status player, they can only help me with account/billing.

Is there no way to get my character back at all? I spent many hours getting her to level 16, and having it gone all to naught.