It seems easy because its' happening to me- I will be saying the same thing when it happens to you.. Btw, not everyone is always in the email inbox, especially the personal ones, I spend most of my times in my work mails.
However, you have highlighted a very good point:
I will just make him suffer and not use the account to it full potential by giving him red trust
When you are spending most of the time with emails,why you didn't check it.I am just said because here no fault from the admins its just how the system works.
And also we have recover method for hacked accounts here :
Recovering hacked accounts or accounts with lost passwords so you need to follow the instructions and wait patiently in the long queue.