Register globals, man, register globals...
It sure looks like it anyway. If you can do this in 'item.php':
<?
echo("$_POST['AccountID']");
?>
and it works, then that's what's up. Most texts and tutorial are still written with register_globals set to "ON", but PHP no longer ships that way. There are lots of workarounds, but it's probably best, if you're getting into php for the 1st time, to learn about the superglobal arrays and start coding with them....
HTH,