Sims 3 Store - "a system error has occurred. Please try again at a later time"

Talked to Vipin at EA.   This person was very helpful and tracked the problem well.

Vipin asked if I had tried another payment method.   I told him that my card number was valid and had not expired.   Vipin set me up to be referred to the special team that handles these kinds of problems.  

I then decided it wouldn't hurt to try a different credit card number.  At least then I would be able to report that as something else we had tried.   That fixed my issue though.   Evidently the first credit card was blocked in some manner (we can see that the transations from Sunday have not processed yet).   So if you have the same error message, try using a different payment method.   

Thanks Vipin!