Q: Credit Card is Declined

I'm so disappointed at Apple. They are declining cards based on IP addresses?! what da ****.

Even if I VPN to my office in US and try to update credit card within itunes, it says "Your credit card was declined. Please enter valid credit card information"

And apply showing this fake message, and not the real reason they are declining cards, is very disheartening.

So , what do we do now if we are on the road alot or travel alot?!

The IP block is an interesting theory and makes me worried for my situation. I have an Australian card with an American billing address for use in the American store (wife's address) and I live in South Korea. I hate to say it but if it turns out to be true, I would not be surprised to be having an issue with an American company. When it comes to people living abroad, some American companies are incredibly narrow minded.

They are about as narrow-minded as many of the companies in South Korea. In South Korea you can't get a sim cad for your Iphone when you are traveling unless you are Korean unlike other Asian countries where you can pretty much walk into any telecom shop and buy a rechargeable telephone card (sim card).

This does suck though for those travel often to various countries and need to pick up different new applications for the countries that they are in. I am wondering now if this is due to censorship here in Asia where China or Hong-Kong may have blocked the Itunes store application access or due to Apple blocking them. Something is wrong for sure though.

Again, this can't be entirely IP based because I'm an American with an American IP with an American credit card and an American billing address getting the same notices. It's not just because you aren't in the US.

Add me to the list Apple. You are losing money. Steve should take your Starbucks away until you fix it.

Count me as one of the victims too. I live in Hong Kong, the reason I'm using the US store is because they don't sell anything in the HK store, just apps, no music, no videos, no books, no whatever. I'm using my relative's credit card. Yesterday iTunes notified me that someone had logged in my account using an unauthorized computer, and needs to verify my billing information. After entering my security number, they told me they declined the credit card. Up till now, my problem is still not solved.

I'd like to point out 2 things here.
1. Why does Apple like to exclude Asians from the game?
2. Declining the credit card makes me feel uncertain about iTunes' security.

Message was edited by: edward1m27

I got a reply from Apple today and they are looking into this for me. I hope they can resolve this issue for me. Let's wait and see what they come up with. As of now I still can not buy applications online and am still being told that my credit card information is incorrect.

Same here, they do not accept my credit card although it has plenty of funds I tried with various other cards and no go...I used this account with no problem for the past 5 years now. This is truly pathetic

Resident of both US and Hong Kong and spent one-half hour on the phone with iTunes support US calling from Hong Kong. I have a US iTunes account with a US purchased MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro is a amazing portable computation device that is able to travel through time and space to lands outside of the USA.
My iTunes account is nearly a decade old and has been linked to my US PayPal account for just as long. As of yesterday it when I plugged in my newly purchased iPad ... iTunes purchases have not worked since. iTunes support has offered advice but not solution as yet.
I've purchased four iPads in the US which I gave as gifts to family ... all worked find. I buy one for myself from Hong Kong and my iTunes account goes kaput. Glad I also purchased an iPhone 4 to go with it ... seems like I'll be getting a lot of milage from my new paper weights.

I did a test this morning. I ran hotspot shield to mask my Korean IP and give me an American IP. *My credit card verified in itunes without a problem*. For all of you in America with this problem, I would suggest checking your IP or firewall settings. Unfortunately, masking my IP is only a workaround and does not help at all when I'm relying only on my iPad and iPhone with free wifi around the city.

I am now really ****** off because I just connected to a proxy that blocks your IP and opened my Itunes back up and tried purchasing the application that I wanted and guess what?? The **** thing worked!!! Why the **** are they blocking IP's now??
What about American expats that travel or live overseas?? What if you have a home in the US and in Asia as well? This is messed up and Apple really needs to look into this (and get this issue corrected!!).

Well, it took about a week but they finally fixed my account. They even gave me 5 song credits for in compensation for my "inconvenience." I guess there is no other solution but to contact iTunes support and wait.

I hope this problem isn't a regular occurrence.

even worse here, since i know my credit card delined, i purchased a iTune gift card and charge $50 in my account. IT doesn't work also because of same messages. so what i can say is, for those of you who has same problem, just DO NOT purchase gift cards and charge it.

Are apple's idiotic tech support team reading this?

Such a mass scale mess-up should be covered by press.

If u guys have a way of getting a blogger to write about this issue, please do report to these blogs:
techcrunch.com
Gizmodo.com
Engadget.com

Once the apple execs see that their mess-up is getting bad press, I promise that they will enable all our accounts.

Jerks!

When sell premium priced devices and make us upgrade every year, you better offer some customer support.

Jerks!

Same problem here!

I was using my credit card for 2 years for my iphone 3G and when I bought iphone 4 the problem was the authentication of the credit card (since it was a new device).

I've tried different cards and all the time it was asking for security code, I changed it through the bank and I downloaded successfully a paid application from my pc. The problem though on iphone 4 still persists...

I tried NONE as payment method, just to download the updates..