When I call I'm met by the electronic auto-attendant whom I short circuit with "operator please", "real person please," "customer service please." A few moments later I'm speaking to someone who is able to get right into my account once I provide various digits from obscure paperwork. It's then I learn that my payment 4 days earlier did not go through. This seems impossible until we retrace my steps right down to the specific buttons I pressed. "Ah, that's the problem. You don't want to say 'this is for a eBay item' because the system will find the relevant transaction and correct the email address you are using to be identical to the one in the eBay item." In others, the system wants to take me back to square one. "To avoid this, as reason for payment, click ‘other.'" I did and a few minutes later the payment was confirmed. I then emailed Marilyn to check her account and a short time later she replied:

YOU DID IT...!!! Thank you again. Now you can write a novel about the importance of proof reading. Once again, I appreciate all you did in getting this resolved. I'm not sure I would have found another eBayer that would have gone the extra mile you did. I got lucky!
----Marilyn

So there are two morals to this story. Proof read your text, particularly your email address. The other: if it is a payment issue you probably want to speak to PayPal.