And, so what about the reverse - when you live in one country, but are on a trip to another country, and STILL have a hard time trying to buy e-books (legitimately) that are geo-restricted to the "being-visited" country.
As I described in some other thread a long time ago, I went through this last summer, when we visited Canada, and I wanted to buy some e-books available in Canada, but not in the US.
Amazon simply refused - they told me right up front that even if I was in Canada, my US billing address meant I was still considered a US customer. I suspect Amazon employees would flunk Geography 101.
B&N said before my trip that their system would recognize my temporarily Canadian IP address, and let me buy, but that didn't turn out to be true. I could see the Canadian-restricted books only until I logged into the B&N site to actually buy, and then it dumped me back to US books.
Kobo also said their system would would recognize my temporarily Canadian IP address, and let me buy, but that didn't turn out to be true either. Just like B&N, as soon as I logged in, it went back to US books only. They did suggest that I use a gift card to buy, but I wasn't near any place I could buy a gift card, so finally with Kobo, I just gritted my teeth, changed my account/billing address to our hotel's address (the first true, if temporarily, the second obviously not), entered my US credit card number and info, and it worked! Woo-hoo! Yee-ha!
Just like Melmac says, though, it's a bit shocking, if not downright scary!
Quote:
Originally Posted by melmac
I must say I was very shocked that most places do not match the credit card address's I really thought that they would. Both the Sony store and Barnes & Noble allow my Australian credit card which is an Amex with an Australian Bank to be used even though in my account I have listed that I'm from Alaska. I thought that the bank would reject the charges but they don't I suppose they just check that the name/number and expiry is correct.
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In all fairness to B&N, this approach might have worked on their site too, but by then, I was just too tired to try, and had already bought the few books I wanted anyway.
As several have already said - it just goes to show how absurd geo-restrictions are in a digital world.