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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by supercheesecake@aussie.zone to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

Title.

Trying to buy an audiobook with my US account from Australia. Am using a VPN and a fresh log in using a private browsing window. Still getting the “not for sale in this country…”

How does Amazon/Audible still know my country?!

EDIT: Thank you everyone for your suggestions, but I feel like we’re no closer to figuring out how Amazon is detecting my physical country. If they have some new “trick” surely this is a privacy issue as well?!

EDIT 2: Important details, this is on my iPhone using both the Amazon and Audible apps, and via the web with Safari (mentioned below). Doesn’t work.

I gave up and went to my desktop and was able to complete the purchase following the same steps without issue. So 🤷‍♂️ ?!

Clearly Amazon is scraping some information from the phone to region lock the purchase. Still would love to know given VPN isn’t masking my location apparently.

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[-] Pika@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

As someone who jumps between the US and Canada (since on the border) I've found that, Amazon will block purchases from Canada to the US and visa versa, it doesn't care about ip, it uses your accounts region, Canada and US have seperate regions in your account settings that you need to do. Sadly this means you would need two different accounts. One for CA and one for US. It's likely the same deal with audible

[-] DrPen@mastodon.social 3 points 1 year ago

@Pika @supercheesecake dont wanna butt in but in case this is relevant: I use at least 3 Amazon regional accounts here in Europe: UK, Germany and Italy (I live in another EU country). I sign in with the same username/password. Currency of products changes for UK from EUR to GBP, and often different ranges of products can show up. I have multiple addresses listed for delivery and just select the one I want.

[-] Pika@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

that's similar to how I do it, change the region and then pay, but some items I've noticed block sale if the originating payment method is in a different region

[-] DrPen@mastodon.social 2 points 1 year ago

@Pika Id have to log into the new region from he start, go find the same product, then order. I dont think it would work if I change region half way through a purchase.

[-] Pika@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

oh sorry if I was unclear, yea since it's still a different account I would need to login when I change regions as well, I can't change halfway through.

[-] DrPen@mastodon.social 2 points 1 year ago

@Pika no probs! Sometimes the products arent available for whatever reason in a region.

[-] newpuritan@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

How are you setting up new accounts? I just tried to create a new one using a VPN but can't because it asks for my phone number for verification which has already been used.

[-] DrPen@mastodon.social 2 points 1 year ago

@newpuritan Its the same account, I just sign in to different Amazon regional sites.

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this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
60 points (100.0% liked)

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