I live in RURAL Australia
Under 2000 in my town, a garage, club, couple of food shops, when I first moved here, the nearest bigger town is a 30k drive, and when I went there, I had to wait two weeks for a set of Kumo's for my 4wd. I have sold to regions all over Australia as well, many isolated places where you just put the name of the station and via the nearest town and then State or Terrotory. I understand all that, and was part of the tongue in cheek I spoke of.
However, facts are facts, ebay owns the playpen, and there is nothing, you or anyone can do that will them any morals or concience.
Unless they are doing something illegal, you have little hope of getting anything changed, and that's just a fact.
All the protesting under the sun won't do anything, the big exodus to oztion fell flat on it's face, and there are numerous reasons behind that.
You could try Bidmate, who are giving away $80 free selling accounts, or you could try numerous other auctions sites who simarly get no traffic, or the Trading Post.
Being rural was never an even playing field, hardly any broadband, dial up, never make a decent snipe for bargains, doesn't change the fact though, try a lease in a shopping centre and try and get a protest going, you'll be out the door in seconds.
You mentioned your population swells by a couple of hundred thousand around the holiday periods, surely there must be some retailers taking advantage of that, you also mentioned you haven't sold on ebay for years, so if your only a buyer, why not use goodle, we do a lot of buying for work from the internet, but not ebay. Just about everyone we deal with online takes paypal or credit cards, yes it may not be as convenient as ebay, but ebays user agreement makes no promise to you or anyone else about the servicability of it's site to suit your needs.
My comments maybe flippant to you, but I have seen enough people buy houses near an airport because it's nice and cheap, then scream and Irma Grese and cry to the government because they made a bad decision, and they want the aircraft noise stopped.
Actually, people like that $hit me to tears, if it aint working for you, find something that does, life is much more peaceful that way.
No one made me move here, I moved here because I loved the place, still do, but have to adjust myself to the prevailing conditions, I don't expect the prevailing conditions to change for me just because of an inconvenienece and because someone changes some rules in the town, which the council does here regularly.
Of course, your totally correct on the verification issue, but we both know if that was enforced, ebay would cease to exist.
