Shopping Abroad With Vpn ?

[Towzak]

I received a birthday gift code from my daughters in the UK. The gift code is redeemable at Amazon UK so I thought I would use my gift code to download music. I got as far as downloading the 'Amazon Downloader' (didn't stop me doing that !) and everything was going swimmingly until I got the dreaded 'you can not download because you are not in the UK' or words to that effect. So now I have a gift code I cannot use

There are ways of course. I suppose I could get someone in the UK to do it and perhaps upload to Skydrive or something and I can take from there. I also considered using a free VPN. Does anybody have any experience in using one of these to shop ? If so could they please give me a few pointers as to how I can go about doing it ?

Thanks muchly in advance

[snorkster]

VPNs are very useful. I use a paid one at strongvpn.com. You can get IP addresses in almost any country, US, UK, etc.

I use it for online shopping as my credit cards are issued in the US. It's amost guaranteed to have problems with an online credit card processing firm when your IP is thailand and credit card billing address is US.

So I always set up the VPN before buying something with a credit card online.

It also works for viewing videos, etc.

I dont know about the free ones, never tried any. You could search just for a web proxy as a full vpn wouldnt be needed for just web browsing.

[Crossy]

For a one-off try ExpatShield, it's free and works well, it is however Ad supported so you'll need to put up with the ads or deal with them in another way.

EDIT Just tried to access expatshield.com seems blocked in Thailand, if anyone wants to try it PM me with an email address and I'll send the .exe

[nikster]

If you just want to use it for that I'd definitely check whether your IP is actually the issue.

At the iTunes store, it's about the address on your credit card - if you have a US card, you can access the US store, and download anything. No matter where you are. Which makes sense as a US resident in Thailand should be able to download music on their holiday.

Maybe the Amazon store works the same? Blocking by IP seems rather crude. Is there a credit card tied to your Amazon account, and what's the billing address country?

Edited October 11, 2011 by nikster

[Towzak]

Thanks! for all the help and advice. Much appreciated

I don't have a credit card tied to Amazon. It is basically a case of redeeming a pre-paid gift code on a product so I thought I would take advantage of their music downloads. Sounds easy enough and you would think it should be regardless of where you are because it is a redeemable gift voucher i.e. the product to all intents and purposes has been paid for and I just have to collect it. However, it seems Amazon UK Mp3 downloads are only available to UK customers which is why it flags my IP and slaps my wrist. Totally ridiculous given the fact it has been paid for (Amazon have my daughters money) and I just have to choose, redeem and collect. Arrrumph !

[keeniau96]

Amazon has contractual agreements on some products that cannot be sent out (exported) from the home country eg. USA or UK. That is probably the case for music tracks. VPN should solve the problem.

[TeoGram]

I've tried various services, e.g. anonymize.net - offshore IP, reliable connection but a bit expensive, then I switched to

anonymous-proxy-server.net and stay with them so far. They are fast and with no download limits. Never experienced an interruption and, of course, they eliminate site blocking. They have Canadian IP. Anonymize.net have Bahamas IP.