We said the exact same thing! We didn't even get the renewal discount one time, because it was outside our window. We thought we would just get new passes, since we weren't technically renewing and had bought three new annual pass vouchers via
Disneyland.com. Nope, she said she was going to be charging us $20/each if we couldn't produce the old passes. Luckily we had brought them with us just in case back at the hotel, but thought geez...
That makes sense. Still frustrating, but it makes sense.