I did ring Paypal, more than once in between three calls to eBay. The first eBay advisor claimed it was Paypal's fault. When I called Paypal they said it was nothing to do with them. I then asked that they change the Paypal payment back to the standard 2 step method in place of the ecpress mehtod foisted on us on eBay in case the new  express method was causing the problem. The advisor at Paypal told me they would not do this as it would be going backwards to old technology! Frankly, I was fed up with both of these big powerful ( and very rich) companies giving me such a runaround.

I am relieved that I don't have an unpaid item on my ebay page any more (I have a 100% rating over 12 years) but right now I don't think I will try shopping on ebay again. I would be too worried that it coukld happen again.