Locked out of the AppStore due to a Greek credit card

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Level 1

5 points

Locked out of the AppStore due to a Greek credit card

Greek credit cards cannot be used for payments outside of Greece at the moment. I get that. When I try to change countries and use one of my foreign credit cards I get this:

It then insists that I enter a Greek credit card to settle that "open purchase". This is a Catch-22 situation. It means I am locked out of the AppStore both on my Mac and iPhone. How to resolve this? I have foreign credit cards I can use.

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2013), OS X Yosemite (10.10.4)

Posted on Jul 1, 2015 6:59 AM

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Answer 1

Dah•veed

Level 9

64,645 points

Jul 1, 2015 10:34 AM in response to Dimitris-T

You may only use credit cards for countries in which you are a legal resident, it must be issued by a bank in that country and have a verifiable billing address in that same country.

Your account can only be associated with one country at a time. Your account is associated with Greece, it is in a default with a purchases from the Greek store and can only be cleared up by iTunes/Mac App Store Customer Service for the Greek store(s). You cannot use credit cards issued by banks in other countries in the Greek iTunes/Mac App Store(s).

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Answer 2

Dimitris-T Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 1, 2015 10:46 AM in response to Dah•veed

Let me repeat then: you cannot use Greek credit cards outside of Greece. They are not accepted in the Greek iTunes/AppStore. Effectively people are trapped inside the Greek iTunes/AppStore.

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Answer 3

Dah•veed

Level 9

64,645 points

Jul 1, 2015 11:22 AM in response to Dimitris-T

Are there iTunes Gift Cards in Greece? You can buy and redeem the gift cards to fund your purchases. You may even be able to buy them with your Greek credit card.

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Answer 4

Jul 9, 2015 12:46 PM in response to Dah•veed

Expanding on this: What about the updates to FREE apps that are installed in Apple devices? Why is a credit card needed for the update to go through since no charge is involved? Or is it and it is charged zero? I am mortified by the probability that this system might have been designed by economists...

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Answer 5

Dah•veed

Level 9

64,645 points

Jul 9, 2015 1:18 PM in response to D.Roditis

If your account has the option you can choose None;

This user, mountaingoatgirl, explains how to get a None (No bank card) option in your account details in the iTunes app on a Mac or PC. -

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5295285?answerId=24907941022#24907941022

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Answer 6

Jul 14, 2015 10:28 PM in response to Dah•veed

Thank you very much for the response. Unfortunately, this is valid for an older version of iTunes. When I click on 'Redeem', it first asks me to log in and then takes me to the redeem code entering screen. Nothing to do with the (most helpful) post of mountaigoatgirl.

As things are now, about 7.000 people in this country, either on Macs or iPhones have this problem. I myself am switching to an Android phone IMMEDIATELY since I use portable connectivity a lot with the bookings in our hotel. Cannot wait for a solution whenever the engineers receive the 'order' from the economists...

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Answer 7

HarisFan

Level 1

0 points

Jul 20, 2015 12:08 AM in response to Dah•veed

I read your post and went to buy a 25 euro iTunes gift card to find myself trapped in the following situation:

immediately my credit amount dropped to 23.01, propably because of an inApp purchase that could not have been completed during the lockout of Greek credit cards and my updates started to work again.

However even though I have all the 23.01 there I am not able to purchase anything, not even free apps because the system keeps asking for a "Verification of my credit card details"! What is the point of having a credit in the Appstore if the system blocks you from using it?

I am completely dissapointed about this...

At least I hope that when the date comes that Apple would like to have its money for my iCloud space, it will retrieve from my credit amount and I won't have to lose all my photos etc...

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