I am very sorry to be leaving eBay. I saw within this community some great oportunities to earn a good living providing good products to interested buyers. For someone like me, partially disabled at the age of 59, this seemed to be a Godsend.

I began selling items, and things grew far more quickly than I had ever hoped. My suppliers assured me of an ongoing supply. Buyers continued to boy. I posted more items.

PayPal contacted me as soon as my account activity increased enough for them to want  "more information".  No big deal, just "routine". They called, I responded. They sent me security tests, and I replied. They sent me customer satisfaction survery and I answered them.

My account was closed without warning on May 21, 2008. The big increase in volume started on My 17th.  I was informed their decision was based on a credit report they ordered as another "routine" procedure. With my account closed, I had no choice but to refund every purchaser. The cost to me was $26,000 in gross revenues.

Some customers were understanding. Some were upset. Some were malicious and vindictive. My perfect feedback rating dropped 15 points overnight. I don't know where it currently is. I haven't the heart to look.

My credit is far from the best. I have never attempted to hide that fact from anyone. It is, after all, a matter of Public Record. I have a prior record, and have had one brush with the law that drew me a jail sentence.

Why am I posting this?

There is every chance that one or the other or both of the circumstances cited above may apply to some of you. Like me, some of you have done their best to move ahead and re-earn a place in the world of solid citizens. You can do everything right, and the rug will be snatched from beneath you by the parameters within a computer program.

Please understand that your efforts to be a good Bay/Pal citizen will not necessarily protect you from being injured by what I can only describe as a highly aggressive (and sometimes poorly chosen) policy which supposedly "protects" the community. I have little doubt that it offers protection; it also paints other less-than-perfect people as potential or de facto risks, without ever engaging in the kind of human contact and exploration which might povide mitigating information.

This world continues to move with increasing speed. Machinery replaces human input and interactions are reduced to unilateral tools, just so many impersonal shreds of paper. No human being, good, bad or indifferent should find their entire life reduced solely to a handful of printed pages.

Please exercise caution. No one will protect you if some incident, however irrelevant or innocent, sets this juggernaut in motion~~except you and your chosen actions. This can happen for almost any reason, including an irate or malicious "buyer" with a long history on the site, who may see an opportunity to try to extort you as a seller. Please understand that this did not happen to me.  eBay is sufficiently aware of this possibility to have decided to change their feedback guidelines quite radically. Perhaps that will mark some kind of a return to the sanity of human interaction.

For my part, these actions have made my decision for me. My e-tail business will now be conducted exclusively on the Internet, far from the PayPals and eBays of the world. Perhaps this is where it belonged from the beginning. The financial damage I have sustained is considerable, but manageable with patience and some common sense.

I bear no one any ill will. The kinds of decisions and conclusions which I have now experienced were made by corporations, who, in the interest of "efficiency", speed and  convenience, have left the lives, livelihoods and reputations of their customers and partners in the care of computer programs. When the damage is done, it's just one more entry on a ledger sheet. Nothing to worry about. No one to have to look in the face. No reason to feel anything but the anticipation of the next Annual Report.

This pendulum, one day, will change directions; it always has, and always will. "Customer Service" will stop being just another computer program. People will re-discover the pleasure of being able to make a telephone call without having to talk to machines and press buttons ad nauseum before finally reaching another human being. The human touch will remedy  some of the painful, impersonal and arbitrary actions.  It is far more discomfitting to have to behave indifferently with another human on the other end of that phone line.

Decisions will still be made. Technology will continue to evolve and improve, to the general betterment of the world at large. And perhaps, with the re-emergence of a balance between human interaction and efficiency, the very nature of our Humanity, and the significance each person's personal story, will again play a significant role in our lives as neighbors and citizens of this beautiful blue-green world.