ApplePay no longer working after iOS upgrade

I have the iPhone 14Plus and ApplePay (NFC functionality) worked well under iOS 16 when an upgrade to iOS 17 broke it. The upgrade into iOS 18 restored the functionality only to be broken once again when I upgraded into 18.1.

Over the past 12 months, I have had multiple support cases opened, and at one point, I was told this was due to a bug (known issue) and that an upcoming release would fix it. The hardware has been tested multiple times and always comes out okay. The fact that I was able to use ApplePay again for the two weeks before the latest upgrade highlights the fact that the NFC sensor is okay, and therefore, it is a software issue that is causing the issue.

The question is how to bring this to Apple's attention and have this fixed? I don't believe I am the only individual experiencing this. Any suggestions?