MelonBerry Wrote:

apirx Wrote:I was able to buy like 4 or 5 books before it stopped working without a Japanese IP, so be aware.

Funny enough. I hit the 5 books limit too.

Bought to novels in July ( see my post above ) and tried to grab some of the free manga this week.

Got the message of

"please contact us or change your country to complete your purchase.

You attempted to purchase an item while in a different country than listed on your Amazon account.

Please contact customer service in order to continue purchasing Kindle items."

Guess I'll have to start using a VPN now? Bleh, I don't understand why amazon does this.

Do I really have to go through customer service? I don't even know what to tell them.

You are kind of stuck now. I always use a VPN when I buy digital goods from Japan for reasons like this one. Though now some places block the VPN addresses like Hulu Japan. Maybe you can open another account with a different credit card and try that approach. You won't be able to talk your way out of this one because they'll probably request something like a pay slip with your Japanese home address on it.

Is this a valid summary for people like me who haven't started down this path:

1) Get a .jp email address (not sure yet where)
2) Get a Tenso address and phone number (to do)
3) Apparently highly recommended: get a VPN or find a someone in Japan willing to give you SSH access to their Unix box (anyone here?)
4) Register on Amazon.co.jp with all the above and buy
5) Get a Kindle to read your book on

Request for clarification about #5: are there publisher-placed restrictions on the device an ebook can be read on? I'd be using iOS/Mac/PC Kindle app to read on phone/tablet/laptop, will some books not work on those? In that case, I will try to buy a first-gen Paperwhite (EY21).

Don't skip on the VPN. I had a tenso address listed too. I guess when you purchase things it gets your IP, and if the country doesn't match up with the address, then they pretty much lock you out.

I don't know if certain books require certain devices, but I can read things fine on my note 3. I just use the kindle app from the playstore.

One extra thing to check if you are getting a message about books being unavailable in your country is to check the country of your Kindle under the Kindle Device options in your account. This is done from the amazon.co.jp page. The kindle has a country setting that is totally separate from your shipping address/linked amazon account country and may need to be set manually.

@aldebrn why would you need a .jp email address? o_O You just need to use a different email address from the one you usually use for your own Amazon Kindle account. I added +JP to my email address at Google because it doesn't change mail routing (Gmail ignores + and anything after it), but it does change the email address field on Amazon's side. From XXXX to XXXX+XXXX. You can use Gmail or whatever.

@Melonberry: That's weird. I wonder if they changed their policies?

Generally, they don't care if you buy from overseas, so long as the publisher doesn't have a region lock on the book, and that's up to the publisher.

Then again, I always use a VPN to buy books on a different device. I consider it my "shipping cost." Time to hit the amazon.co.jp forums to see what's up, I think.

EDIT: I checked their policies, and a quick check of the dates shows that they haven't changed anything recently. *shrug* No idea what's up with that.

I wouldn't say " locked " me out of my account per se, but I just can't purchase things now.

@Melonberry: did you have separate accounts, or did you merge them? Maybe if you merged them, (or merged them accidentally) that would cause the problem? That's the only thing I can think of now. (And I have no idea how to "unmerge" a merged account. ._.)

I used my gmail for jp and hotmail for co.uk, and a Tenso postal address and phone number on my credit card and on my "my kindle" page.

It's been working out well so far, although I haven't read much, I still haven't received any angry emails from them...

I fell over this thread looking for something else...

I've worked for Amazon supporting users with Kindles and there is regional locking for content due to the contracts between publishers and content creators and also TV and movie studio restrictions. Amazon would be quite happy to open up all content to all Kindles otherwise.

However Kindles are portable and folks take them on holiday abroad and expect to be able to buy content while they're not in their home region. Kindle owners can download up to five items in this situation, after that the system stops offering a particular Kindle account the option to do so. The limit applies to multiple devices if they are registered to a single Amazon account.

There is a way around this although I've never tried it myself. It does involve a certain amount of work though.

Set up an Amazon account with a unique email address (this is important!). Register your Kindle device or app to this account and then download up to five books etc. from amazon.co.jp via a VPN. You won't be able to download more than five books for that device on that account.

Set up another Amazon account with a different email address. Deregister your Kindle from the first account and reregister it to the second account. You can then download five different books via VPN to that account but you still have the first five books in the first account stored on the Amazon Cloud. If you want to read those books again deregister the Kindle and reregister it with the first account and those books will reappear.

Step and repeat. You need to keep track of which accounts, each with a unique email address have which books in them and you will get very skilled at deregistering and reregistering your Kindle device.

Nojay Wrote:Set up an Amazon account with a unique email address (this is important!). Register your Kindle device or app to this account and then download up to five books etc. from amazon.co.jp via a VPN. You won't be able to download more than five books for that device on that account.

Why, if you're using VPN? I've downloaded 11 books as of today and have yet to be blocked.

The method I suggested (multiple Amazon accounts, 5 book limit and registering and deregistering a Kindle device) works without using a credit card registered to a Japanese address. A VPN connection is still needed as the digital purchase has to be done from "within" Japan but Amazon thinks you're there, just buying a few books while visiting and limiting you to five purchases.

My credit card isn't registered to a Japanese address, and i haven't been restricted to five books. Something changed, perhaps? I know what you're describing used to be true, and I also know it was pissing off a lot of expats.