Buying on American's Kindle Store from abroad

[Josieb1]

I tried reselecting my US address, but none of what you said happened. No "migration letter", no links to click, no moving my library...
I think I might have done something wrong, but I have no idea what.

Is the US address able to be selected in 'Manage Your kindle' ?

It needs to be selected in your home country store. Then go to the US store, and it should all be triggered to move your account over.

In my case I loaded the US address on to my account in the UK store, then selected the US address as my Kindle address in the UK store, then went over to Amazon.com and the migration was triggered.

[tsuk]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Is the US address able to be selected in 'Manage Your kindle' ?

It needs to be selected in your home country store. Then go to the US store, and it should all be triggered to move your account over.

In my case I loaded the US address on to my account in the UK store, then selected the US address as my Kindle address in the UK store, then went over to Amazon.com and the migration was triggered.

Yeah, when I go to "Menage my Kindle", and try to change my country, I can choose either my address in Brazil and the in the US. I've tried using both - when I say I'm from Brazil, everything works (but I'm stuck with the Latin American Kindle Store, obviously), but when I choose my US address, the error I posted earlier shows up, and I can't buy anything.

I need to find a way around that. I don't know, using a proxy might work, but as I said I don't know if its safe or not.

[abookreader]

tsuk - I think the difference in between what you and Josie are talking about is the UK "Home Store" now is sometimes at http://www.amazon.co.uk for some users. Currently UK users have a choice between registering their Kindles at the .com or the .uk site. When Amazon detects a UK IP address being used it makes a suggestion that they might want to migrate over to the .UK site but as of yet they don't force that migration.

So in effect it complicates the matter, some UK users consider their home store to be amazon.co.uk where they pay in British pounds while others consider their home store to be at amazon.com with a British address on the Manage My Kindle page where they pay in US Dollars.

Brazil doesn't have their own separate website for Kindle - so they always remain at the amazon.com web address. The choice you have in deciding book availability is determined only by that address on the Manage My Kindle page.

[tsuk]

oh ok, that makes more sense! Thanks

Anyway, I'd still really appreciate any ideas on how to get around my issue. =D

[Josieb1]

tsuk - I think the difference in between what you and Josie are talking about is the UK "Home Store" now is sometimes at http://www.amazon.co.uk for some users. Currently UK users have a choice between registering their Kindles at the .com or the .uk site. When Amazon detects a UK IP address being used it makes a suggestion that they might want to migrate over to the .UK site but as of yet they don't force that migration.

So in effect it complicates the matter, some UK users consider their home store to be amazon.co.uk where they pay in British pounds while others consider their home store to be at amazon.com with a British address on the Manage My Kindle page where they pay in US Dollars.

Brazil doesn't have their own separate website for Kindle - so they always remain at the amazon.com web address. The choice you have in deciding book availability is determined only by that address on the Manage My Kindle page.

abookreader - Thanks for explaining that, i didn't understand why my experience was so much easier that other peoples.

[Psykhe]

Originally Posted by tsuk

The first couple of books I used the 3G, then I figured it would be better to download the books to my PC instead.

I *think* the 3G use caused this. At least thats my personal pet theory about the infamous amazon mail. I have no real proof for it so far, but in every instance I've seen someone writing about it it involved using the 3g connection to download books.

Won't be of much use to avoid that now, of cource. As I see it you have two options, both involve opening a new amazon account with an US address:

- deregister Kindle from old account, register it to new account, either use gift cards to fuel new account if you want to eliminate one possible detection option or just use your international credit card (I've seen reports of people using them without issues).
However the books you bought on your old account won't work on your new account. So if you want to read those you'll need to strip the DRM of them.
-or-
- buy books on new account, strip DRM, load on Kindle which is still on your old account

[abookreader]

tsuk - One thing I've never seen tried and makes me wonder..

Does your friend in the US have a Kindle? If so, could you try this?

1. Buy a Gift Card with your International Credit Card and apply it to your account.

2. Ask your friend in the US to deregister his Kindle from his Amazon account, temporarily register to your Amazon account, and buy your book using his Kindle 3G.

~It should work, right? He's back in the US

3. At that point have him unregister from your account and go back to his own.

4. Would your account be unlocked for purchasing then? ie - you will have established a history of purchasing from a US physical location.

[aquawater]

Maybe you can try Borderlinx.
People in SG use either VPOST or Borderlinx to purchase things worldwide.

[Bad Astronaut]

Originally Posted by tsuk

I might try to proxy thing, I'm just worried about its security. Does anyone know if it's safe using one?

Thanks!

If you are using SSL encryption (ie. lock symbol is shown in the bottom corner of your browser) then no one can read your data regardless of what proxies you might be going through. When you are logged into Amazon you are always using SSL.

[tsuk]

Originally Posted by Bad Astronaut

If you are using SSL encryption (ie. lock symbol is shown in the bottom corner of your browser) then no one can read your data regardless of what proxies you might be going through. When you are logged into Amazon you are always using SSL.

Hmmm. So if I use a proxy and buy something on the Amazon.com, they won't be able to read my data? That's interesting. Using proxies might be a viable solution, then. Thanks!!

----

About the other suggestions, thanks a lot. I might consider those too, specially deregistering my Kindle, that might also be a good way to get around the issues I'm having.

[Bad Astronaut]

Originally Posted by tsuk

Hmmm. So if I use a proxy and buy something on the Amazon.com, they won't be able to read my data? That's interesting. Using proxies might be a viable solution, then. Thanks!!

Just to be clear (because I'm not sure who you mean by 'they'):
-No one other than Amazon can read your data
-Amazon obviously will read the data that you send them. You will appear to be wherever the proxy is located. There are ways that they could trace your location through the proxy but this would be take a lot of effort. The only time something like that would happen is in a criminal investigation. No need to worry about that, right? Right??

[tsuk]

Originally Posted by Bad Astronaut

Just to be clear (because I'm not sure who you mean by 'they'):
-No one other than Amazon can read your data
-Amazon obviously will read the data that you send them. You will appear to be wherever the proxy is located. There are ways that they could trace your location through the proxy but this would be take a lot of effort. The only time something like that would happen is in a criminal investigation. No need to worry about that, right? Right??

By "they" I meant potential hackers or something. Thanks for your post, I think I'll give the proxies a try.

And don't worry. The only illegal thing I'll be doing is downloading Kindle Books from the American store lol

[dilipc]

Wow, this forum is a treasure house of information! I am a new K3 owner living in India, and find this discussion very useful.

[Oldpilot]

Originally Posted by abookreader

I think these geographic restrictions are downright anti-consumer and I have no problem with somebody going to a different country to buy their books.

I think the problem has more to do with VAT than anything else. It's not Amazon, or authors, or publishers who are throwing this curve at you: it's your friendly Inland Revenue Service that taxes e-books as it would tax any consumer item. (The UK for example applies VAT to ebooks but not to paper books; go figure.)

[drawingbreath]

The most maddening thing for me, is when Kindle books go free during a promotion period, but the book isn't available in the UK at all it just completely makes a mockery of what the internet is supposed to be about.