Recently when trying to buy items on the XBOX Live marketplace my credit card started getting denied. In an effort to determine why this was happening, I visited Microsoft’s billing site. In doing so I discovered that it is impossible to change your billing country on that site. In fact during a telephone call to XBOX Live Support I was informed that the only way I could change my country was to create an entirely new XBOX Live Gamertag.
I originally signed up for XBOX Live back in 2002 when I lived in New Zealand. Subsequently I immagrated to Australia and in 2006 I bought an XBOX 360. Since I had been paying for XBOX live since 2002, when I signed in to my 360 with my existing Gamertag I was allocated a Gold XBOX Live Account.
At some point in the last two years I switched the credit card I was using for XBOX Live to a new credit card issued by my Australian bank. I probably updated my billing details via the account management blade on the XBOX. Using this new card I continued to buy game content in the Live marketplace. Everything was going fine until last week when it all stopped working.
So, after my conversation with XBOX Live Support it appears that my only options are to:
- Get a new Gamertag, which will stop me from using content tied to my existing Gamertag and reset my Gamerscore to zero!
- Buy Microsoft Points at brick and mortar retail stores.
- Use my old NZ credit card (which is difficult to pay now that I live in Australia).
None of these options are particularly appealing. In the end this whole experience has made me bitter and twisted about XBOX Live.
It seems that I’m not the only one in this predicament either.
Filed under: Gaming
Deeper Design is Oliver Jones. This is his place to brain dump about anything that crosses his mind.
I’ve enjoyed your layout flipflops. I think I’d like to see this theme merged with the one you had up the other day, if you care.
go to http://www.gamepointsnow. and you can buy the prepaid card or the points card that you need, no matter what region
Joe your solution works like a charm!!!!! I just wish I had read your reply yesterday before I bought two games with another account. Anyway, now I got my codes and my original account with the wrong country is gold again for a year
It’s a bummer, i accidentally made my account with US billing details, now i can’t buy microsoft points on that account :@.
it sucks big time. though, cool link- will be useful.
i live in holland but put my default country as united kingdom (where i’m from) as i wanted my live in english.
have just found out that was a big mistake! wanted to download cod 5 maps.
spend 800 euro and go through 2 xboxs in one month, and this is all microsoft can offer you- absolutely squat.
sort it out dummies!! i’m going to try get manipulative on the phone; NOTHING’S impossible. give a little!
meanwhile, will have to put points on another account i made- what a waste- and then hope i can still access the maps when my xbox is dead and i have a new one…
by the way, microsoft tell me that i cannot download the maps on my current (uk) account- unless i go to the uk with my xbox and download them there. because of the region difference.
even though i am downloading in holland on a dutch isp…
i despair!
this problem has always been a nightmare for me. all i can do is get my friends back in my registered country (UK) to buy me points; or via gamesbite.com. gamepointsnow has failed me 3 times, have never ever been able to buy from them via google checkout.
so..can anyone confirm that points cards sold in stores are region-free?
Same problem for me… And in Europe it would seem many people (logically) move to neighbouring countries for jobs and relationships… Being on the same landmass and the open borders makes it all easy and convenient… But then this problem surfaces…
I SOOOOO wish someone would give a response/explanation… Major Nelson? ANYONE?
Just tried adding my first MS Points for COD and I can’t because my account is USA and I am in Britain. I managed to have 2 lots of gold account though in Britain on this fine! Not until I tried to get points that I opened an American account originally by mistake.
An online petition has been set up that will be sent to Major Nelson, regarding the billing system’s limitation of not allowing users to change their billing country. Please read and sign it at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/xboxbilling/index.html
This really sucks!
Instead of wasting their money on creating unnecessary technology to get rid of controllers and try to sell more than the Nintendo Wii, they should make a solution for this kind of problems.
I mean seriously, I live in the US but I used a hotmail account that I created while I lived in Mexico, but I did´t know that that was gonna be such a problem. A lot of free content is only available on the US Xbox LIVE Marketplace, which sucks. Luckily I can sign in into my brothers account and download all that stuff, but seriously, Microsoft need to start spending their money on solving actual problems instead of wasting it on useless technology. I mean it is cool and all, but that could have waited.
it sucks! i used to live in mexico, but i moved to the us and now i cant buy anything from the damn store. i hope they resolve this quickly
This does indeed suck. And will probably never get fixed, it’s been a problem for years. I don’t understand why this is such an issue. Fine, if they want to limit content by location fair enough, but i don’t understand why there is a prohibition on you MOVING location.