Apple does not allow me to change country in apple id

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Level 1

5 points

Apple does not allow me to change country in apple id

Hello

I live in Venezuela. I am trying to change the apple Id region to US because right now I only have valid US form of payments (currency exchange controls, those that know Venezuela know what I am talking about).

I have tried changing the region of my Apple id from in the settings of my device and nothing happens.

I have tried to do it from the App Store, then I get into a kafkian loop;

I select United States, press change, a window pops up saying

"Your credit card could not be authorized. You have an open purchase that could not be closed;please click Billing Info and update your payment information. If you cancel you may not be able to buy nor change countries until this billing issue has been resolved."

So I go to billing infor

As far as I can see, he last purchase I made was in early 2014, (with a valid Venezuelan credit card, still valid today, but that is not valid for purchases in the appStore) ill out everything, and it tells me

"Payment processing is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later".

I presume this is because I don't have access to US dollars with that credit card. But if I try to use an American credit card, it tells me

"The credit card you entered is not supported in the Venezuelan store"

So I'm stuck, unable to download apps (free or not) to the device. It is most frustrating.

iPad Mini

Posted on Dec 4, 2015 8:20 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Dah•veed

Level 9

66,541 points

Dec 4, 2015 8:39 AM in response to gabigueron

You will need to sort out the issues with your current account in the iTunes/ Mac App Store for Venezuela with Customer Support for Venezuela.

However, you may not open an account in the US store if you are not a legal resident of the US.

You may only have an account in the store for the country of which you are a legal resident. You must provide a credit card issued by a bank in the country of which you are a legal resident that has a verifiable billing address in that same country.

Late 2012 Mac mini, OS X El Capitan 10.11.1; Apple Watch, 38 mm silver AL, Watch OS 2.0.1; iPad Air 2 & iPhone 6+, iOS 9.1

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Answer 2

ChrisJ4203

Level 10

236,303 points

Dec 4, 2015 11:59 AM in response to gabigueron

Try this link to get assistance from iTunes Support. https://www.apple.com/emea/support/itunes/contact.html

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Answer 3

Dah•veed

Level 9

66,541 points

Dec 4, 2015 2:17 PM in response to gabigueron

You realize that Apple isn't responsible for the political/economic situation in your country. That is a local matter for you and your compatriots.

The fact that you can buy a Mac in Venezuela may have nothing to do with Apple. Are those Apple Authorized 3rd party vendors? Or are those gray market sales? Folks who buy Macs abroad and bring them home to sell.

Credit cards are not usually the only form of payment available in most countries. Are iTunes gift cards for sale in Venezuela?

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Answer 4

gabigueron Author

Level 1

5 points

Dec 4, 2015 11:55 AM in response to Dah•veed

Hi Dah.veed.

Thanks for your answer.

This leaves any resident in Venezuela in a conundrum. There are Stores in Venezuela legally selling apple devices in our local currency. However, under current Venezuelan law, we actually do not have access to dollars for e-comerce (that was not the case a year ago, mind you.. but then, the number of dollars for electronic transactions allowed has dwindled, from 3000, to 300, to 0 (yep, zero).

So you are basically saying that someone living in Venezuela, can legally buy a device, but can't legally download any apps even if they have an account in a US bank, (even if they are US nationals!). So he/she is reduced to only the very basic apps that came with the device? I have no words to describe how insane that policy is.

I'll take your advice and try to find customer support, but so far I have not seen any real one. As far as I have seen in the web page, if you are in the Venezuelan apple store, all the "help" I have seen in the web page is limited to instructions on how to manage the apple id, the language I want to receive the mail in, and stuff like that... but no access to live customer support.

What am I doing wrong?

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