Hacker News Reader

Comment by ti32x | Hacker News Reader

I am currently locked out of all paid Google services because I committed the crime of changing countries while holding an active Google Developer Account/Wallet. I've talked to them over the phone, and they were entirely unhelpful.

In contrast, Amazon's phone service is great. Get yourselves sorted google.

View on HN

What were you supposed to do according to them?

I have Google Developer account too, and I'm "changing countries" regularly (travel a lot).

Could you please enlighten me what dangers there are?

Thank you and I hope the best outcome for you.

This is so annoying I have to be worried about these things even though using plenty of their paid services where I really expect the support. I have had 10 Android devices, 3 Chromebooks, published apps, paid for Google storage, for dev account(s) etc.

I had a similar problem. There's literally NO solution other than opening up a new account.

It was a wake up call. I've since moved most of my digital life onto other services.

Please tell me how to avoid this case. (according to Google)

One solution is to try not to need those services.

What services did you switch to, and at this point what feedback can you share about those services?

PayPal is the same. I had to close the account and open a new one in the other country.

This is exactly my problem now. I've moved to another country and now cannot buy any movies or TV shows on Play Store using the Google account I've had for 10 years.

Phoned and emailed Google support, but they just insist that I'm not allowed to change country. I've even tried using an HTTP proxy located in my old country with a credit card registered in my old country, but still Google blocks me.

If I knew about this restriction I would never have signed up for Google Wallet.

I had the same problem trying to buy XBox Live with my MSN/hotmail account 12 years ago. Seems like Google is becoming the new MS as far as their products go.

What the actual!

I must point out that I am an actual customer, that have paid actual money services delivered, not just a user and someone else's product.

I must admit that I have never read more than some random bits of the terms and conditions, but moving does not strike me as an obvious justifiable reason for terminating the contract..

They haven't terminated my contact, I just get a payment error whenever I try to buy a movie or TV show.

Curiously, there's no error when buying Android apps or extra Google Drive storage. Seems there's some extra restriction that Hollywood is placing on Google.

I must point out that I too am an actual customer. In fact, I'm a customer in two ways: I paid Google thousands of dollars in commission on sales I made through Google Wallet; and I'm trying to pay money to watch TV and movies.

Google has always had terrible general support and I am sure they do not have any incentive to change that. The support from tech guys, if you get that far, is excellent though.

Same for me! I check every couple months to see if anything changed in the Google Wallet policy but I lost all hope now. It's outrageous.

I travel quite a bit. Changing countries regularly and mix up stuff like a swiss home location, german credit card, and thai phone number.

So far google did not care at all. I assume because i dont randomly change devices.

Any pointers why this could happen?

Can you say more about this? I may have a country change in my near future.

I feel like google would rather accept losing marketshare on services than actually make an effort to hire even a limited but empowered support staff.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com