How to get a US amazon account?

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Hmm, I don't understand this... First you say you have two accounts, a UK and a US one. Then you say you switch countries within your account...

I presume you use the same CC for both accounts?

Sorry for not being clear.
I have a single account.
Within that account I'm switching countries.
I use my German credit card for all countries.
The credit card is registered to my German account's address.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by oecherprinte

Can't you get an amazon US gift card and just have the card code sent to your email. You should be able to pay for that gift card code with an international non-US credit card.

Then you could use that code with your (fake) US account.

That should work (I hope).

You don't need gift cards anymore.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by cykelmyggen

Does this mean that you changed the address on your credit card to an US address?

No. My standard German credit card has my original German billing address. It's the very same address as for my German part of my account.
I've got 3 addresses/countries registered to my account.

[Josieb1]

Sorry for not being clear.
I have a single account.
Within that account I'm switching countries.
I use my German credit card for all countries.
The credit card is registered to my German account's address.

I have one Amazon account, in the UK, from which i can buy goods from Amazon.com, it has one credit card linked, my UK card.

I have one kindle, which is registered to the UK store.

Would it be possible for you to explain the steps I would need to take to purchase Kindle books from the US and get them on my Kindle please?

I am just still a bit confused, and would really like those 9 Jean Plaidys, its just as they are $74 i don't want to make a mistake, or worse, muck up downloading from the UK store.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

I have one Amazon account, in the UK, from which i can buy goods from Amazon.com, it has one credit card linked, my UK card.

I have one kindle, which is registered to the UK store.

Would it be possible for you to explain the steps I would need to take to purchase Kindle books from the US and get them on my Kindle please?

I am just still a bit confused, and would really like those 9 Jean Plaidys, its just as they are $74 i don't want to make a mistake, or worse, muck up downloading from the UK store.

Let's see if I get this correct:

Create an account.
Register an UK address
Register an US address
Register your CC, with it's correct address

Switch country when required....

[Josieb1]

Let's see if I get this correct:

Create an account.
Register an UK address
Register an US address
Register your CC, with it's correct address

Switch country when required....

And then change the country for the Kindle in 'manage my Kindle' or download to a PC and then transfer manually, and keep a backup on your pc, as they won't be backed up by Amazon?

Thats where I get confused.

Or is it only the Kindle account that has to be changed to the US?

[abookreader]

I'll just add -
Create an account at http://www.amazon.com ... the US site.

Right now Amazon is still allowing people to maintain an account at Amazon.com and have a UK address on their Manage My Kindle page. You pay in US dollars, but receive UK availability and prices. There is a suggestion that you might want to switch your account to the Amazon UK site, but so far they don't force it. I suspect that might change in the future.

I know of a couple of people that have changed their Manage My Kindle addresses around pretty frequently without messing with changing their credit cards or bothering to go through the pay with gift cards procedures. It works fine.

Then occasionally you will see somebody report that they've had their account put down on a temporary lock down and received an email from Amazon asking them to verify their address. This seems to happen rarely and mostly when a user buys several books all at once with an IP address that doesn't match their physical location. The general consensus seems to be that if you simply ignore the email, change your Manage My Kindle address back for a couple of days - the account lock is lifted and you will be able to buy books as you normally would.

If you read the Kindle Community message board at Amazon.com every couple of days somebody will claim that people have had their Amazon.com accounts closed for messing around with the address on the Manage My Kindle page. I've never personally heard of this happening and I always wonder if it is true or just a bit of internet legend that gets repeated over and over like it is fact. But I guess the risk is always there.

[abookreader]

and keep a backup on your pc, as they won't be backed up by Amazon?

No, any book you buy at Amazon.com is kept in your Amazon.com archive on the Manage My Kindle page, no matter what your Country was when you bought it.

But I keep back-ups of all my book purchases on my PC anyway and I think everybody should do so.

[Nicky_oz]

this is really interesting, thank you mueller! i have got a Kindle for my sister and wasn't sure about the gifcards or not, or using a separate account. I was worried as I read some Aussies who had just changed their address had an email from Amazon saying that they had to prove they lived in the US to get the US kindle book. But I think also these people were using whispernet to buy books, do you solely get books via your computer?

[Pushka]

One account. An Australian credit card. A US drop box address. No proxy server. No gift card. Multiple kindles sent to Australia and multiple US books sent to the kindles. Books mainly, but not always sent to the pc first. A kindler since October 2009. No nasty email either.

[Nicky_oz]

thank you Pushka! i was hoping you'd reply..

[Corran006]

So I live in Canada, I have to create a U.S address and all that? Don't I have to come up with the correct name and all that?

could someone explain how I would do this?

[Pushka]

Cheers Nicky! If you do receive an email from Amazon, simply sit back, wait for a couple of weeks, and then try again. Amazon do freeze accounts, but the only reports of this have been for when people consistently return large scale, non faulty products. My logic is that if I can buy the physical books, ship them to Australia, then why is this different to buying the ebook version. Especially if when I do travel to the US, I can buy these books there. Fingers crossed for everyone.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Nicky_oz

this is really interesting, thank you mueller! i have got a Kindle for my sister and wasn't sure about the gifcards or not, or using a separate account. I was worried as I read some Aussies who had just changed their address had an email from Amazon saying that they had to prove they lived in the US to get the US kindle book. But I think also these people were using whispernet to buy books, do you solely get books via your computer?

I've had US Kindles until 4 months ago. Till then I've bought all my eBooks via PC. Without proxy. Never have had a single problem.
I've bought DX Graphite about 3 months ago and Kindle 3 (or is it Kindle 2 Graphite?) about 4 weeks ago. Since then I've bought a few books directly on my Kindles. Without any problems as well.
Before that, I've bought some eBooks via Kindle app on my iPad. Again - without proxy and from a German IP address.

Should I run into problems, I'd open a separate account (1 x German, 1 x US, maybe even 1 x UK). But I'd like to avoid that. It's painful enough to track all those different accounts (BooksOnBoard, Fictionwise, Weltbild, Libri, B&N, Sony, ...). I don't want to add several Amazon accounts to that...

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

And then change the country for the Kindle in 'manage my Kindle' or download to a PC and then transfer manually, and keep a backup on your pc, as they won't be backed up by Amazon?

Thats where I get confused.

Or is it only the Kindle account that has to be changed to the US?

Only in "manage your Kindle" you change countries.