Is it possible to use a credit card with a foreign billing address to buy items from a local Play store? I have a Visa credit card from a German bank with a billing address in Germany registered in my Google Wallet. I have successfully used my Wallet to pay for online purchases from several online service providers in different foreign currencies so I am sure the credit card is correctly registered in my Wallet account. However, while physically located in the UK, I cannot complete any purchase from the UK Play store. At the point when I need to select my preferred payment method from my Wallet account, it shows my registered credit card greyed out with the text "Unsupported Payment method" next to it.
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Might be best to check with google support on this.. Are you using a UK sim card? If so, possibly, pop in your german sim card into handset and try using it from there? As Google is seeing how the handset is tied to germany, it may accept it?– t0mm13bCommented Dec 18, 2012 at 17:28
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According to Google Play support in the US, International Credit Cards are not allowed. I would not be surprised if the UK Google Play store had the same policy. support.google.com/googleplay/bin/…– znewmanCommented Dec 18, 2012 at 17:36
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For further clarification, I have tried using a Nexus 7 as well as Win7 PC (using Chrome) to buy from the UK Play store with the same result. I have also been exchanging several emails with Google support since early October but no definitive answer from them yet. I will give it a go using my mobile phone with German SIM card. Stand-by...– JPSCommented Dec 18, 2012 at 17:52
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That would mean if I'm living in, say, Germany, and I'm on vacation in Spain, I could not buy anything from the playstore? Looks at least the Spanish permit me, as I did so already on the Canary Islands. To t0mm13b might be right, and SIM+Credit card origin must match.– IzzyCommented Dec 18, 2012 at 17:54
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If I open the Play app on my mobile phone (using wifi), it immediately shows the "Apps" category with no option to go back to see all categories (movies, magazines, books). Funny enough, all apps are shown with € prices as opposed to Sterling when I access the Play app on my Nexus 7 (using same wifi network). I also see some "German" apps on the mobile which are not shown on the Nexus. Mobile is still on Froyo. I suspect the Play app is limited to apps only. If I search for a book title using Play Books, it opens the Play app returning apps that match my search string entered in Play Books.– JPSCommented Dec 18, 2012 at 19:50
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2 Answers
As far as I know Google doesn't allow the use of International cards (at the moment).
I also heard from some other people (and t0mm13b acknowledges it too apparently) that the Play Store looks at your current SIM card to know your home country. So maybe if you could get your hands on a German SIM card (maybe an old one that doesn't really work anymore), you can still pay for applications.
Or you can have a look for some cheap credit card in the UK.
From my own experiences, they do not allow this.
When I am in the US with my Australian google play account [and Australian credit card], I am unable to make any purchases from the play store. The reason being the US play store refuses my card details due to it's Australian address.
This may vary from region to region. But generally for the US and UK [not only Google Play], they enforce regional restrictions in a more strict manner due to licensing restrictions of the multimedia content, ie: music and movies.
