B&N also charged me $1. But they gave it back after validating my card.
I can buy books from B&N shop easily. I use this VPN server:
http://thefreevpn.com/ I don't enter my account info with VPN and since B&N doesn't want your credit card info every time, I am happy with it. No ads too. There is also Hotspot Shield I sometimes use. It's from a bigger and older company. Probably safer.