Virtual Identity Crisis

I have been stuck in eBay/Pay Pal hell for the past two hours.

So, suddenly, tonight, when I go to list an item, I get an error message saying that I can't list it because my email address that I use for eBay and the email address I use for Pay Pal are different. So, I go to my eBay account information and try to change my email address so that they would match, but then, I get an error message telling me that I can't use that email address because my user name for that address is the same as my eBay user name. Alrighty. I think of changing my email address with Pay Pal, but don't really want to because my clients use that information to pay me for freelance work. So, I decide to check out the live chat help for eBay to see if they have a solution. So, I wait in a queue for a rep and when she gets online, I start telling her my situation and of course, she keeps jumping the gun... first suggesting that I change my email address on my eBay profile, then suggesting that I change the address on my Pay Pal profile.... She won't let me get my whole story out. Okay, so then I finally tell her that I've tried all that and the errors that I'm getting and then she tells me that you can have more than one email address on your Pay Pal account. Yay! An advancement! So, I dash over to Pay Pal and try to add the email address that is on my eBay account and it tells me that there is already a Pay Pal account with the email address. Hum. I don't remember making one, but it's possible, so I log out of Pay Pal and then try to log back in with the other email address trying all my passwords. I finally get into the account, $0 balance, hasn't been used since 2005, so I think that I'll just close it, thereby freeing up that email address to be added to my real Pay Pal account that's verified and whatnot. So, I try to close it but in order to close it, I have to enter in the credit card number of the credit card associated with that account. Unfortunately, I no longer have that credit card and have no idea what the credit card number is. So, I try Pay Pal's help page and it just keeps directing me to the directions to close an account, so I decide to give them a call. They have the worst automated help system of all time. It also wants my credit card number that I don't have and in the middle of all this frustration, it randomly asks me if I want to add the number that I called from to my account. WTF. So, anyway, it keeps on asking me irrelevant questions and giving me irrelevant options to choose until finally it says that it's going to direct me to a customer service representative. Yay! BUT, then I get a voicemail saying that they are observing holiday hours (Is it Hanukkah? What holiday is this? Should I be celebrating?) and that I should try their website. Seriously. Then, it hangs up on me.

So, despite my best efforts, I'm in a Catch 22 and no closer to a resolution. Sigh. So frustrating. At least my birthday is Sunday!