| | cannot upgrade, diff residence & billing countriesPage 1 of 1 | I am a U.S. citizen living in Canada for 2 years. I want to upgrade to a paid POF membership. I have only U.S. credit cards. The POF upgrade form allows only Canada as the billing country. Because I cannot select U.S. as my billing address, I cannot use my credit cards and cannot upgrade.
Is there a workaround? | |
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| cannot upgrade, diff residence & billing countries
Posted: 6/23/2012 8:42:32 AM | I used to have this issue a lot when I first moved from the UK to Canada as I kept my UK credit card for emergencies. I changed my address with the credit card company to my parent's UK address so any bills could be opened by them and so I could transfer funds to pay it on line once the statement was delivered to their home.
So, I have a couple of suggestions.
Firstly, the billing address you have in the States, I have to presume that if your credit card statements are being sent there, that it is the address of someone you know and trust rather then an old address where you don't know the people who currently live there. If not, you are taking one heck of a risk as any mailings (even if you get your statements on-line) will have your credit card number on them which is very risky.
But, you could temporarily amend your profile to reflect your location as the town as that of your billing address, then subscribe to the upgrade, and once paid, change your profile back to Canada. The upgrade subscriptions are attached to the User name and so the change in town/country shouldn't effect the upgraded status. This would create the same scenario as if you were an upgraded member when moving countries.
Or, apply to Capital One for a secure credit card. This company is one which actually has a scheme for newcomers. Canada doesn't allow transfer of a credit record from certain other countries so many people don't realize when you move here that you have to start again to build a credit rating. Capital One will get you to mail them a cheque and once it clears, they will send you a credit card with a limit which equals the amount of funds they are holding from you.
You use it as your normally would and they have the safety of knowing that if you default on any payments, they have your security fund anyway. After about a year, they will mail you your security fund back, if you pay your bill on time consistently but you have to make that request and your repayment history must be impeccable. You also have to actually use the card - so use it at least once a month for a tank of gas or something similar and pay the entire balance each month. If you are planning on staying in Canada for an extended time, it's worth building that credit rating here anyway.
One other thought is with regards to the pre-paid credit cards that are available now. Some stores sell pre-loaded VISA's and Mastercard specifically for on-line transactions. You pay at time of purchase for the limit you want on the pre-loaded card and once you've spent that, you can re-load it. I'm not sure how that would work with the billing address - I presume you have to register your information with the card holder to activate it once purchased but you would need to look into the specifics of that. | |
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| cannot upgrade, diff residence & billing countries
Posted: 6/23/2012 8:45:07 AM | If you do go to prepaid credit cards, I recommend BMO. They do address verification and the card has your name on it, so you can use it online with many vendors that normally don't accept prepaid credit cards. | |
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| cannot upgrade, diff residence & billing countries
Posted: 6/23/2012 10:17:10 PM | miss_allison: Thanks for the email address, I’ll try customer service.
import_from_uk: Thanks also to you for the time you spent on your thoughtful reply. If customer service can’t help, I’ll change my POF address temporarily. I keep a residence in the U.S. too. | |
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| cannot upgrade, diff residence & billing countries
Posted: 10/1/2012 9:51:57 AM | I never closed the loop here.
In the 'registration' block I changed my country to USA, then entered my old city & zip as my profile location. Then I entered my U.S. credit card info. It all worked just fine, then I changed my country and location back to Canada. No hassle at all.
That was for my first subscription 3 months ago. Now for some as-yet-unknown reason I can't renew, but that's a separate topic for a different thread. | |
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