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Computer Sites that Accept International CCs? 20

Posted by Cliff from the the-US-isn't-the-only-country-with-willing-customers dept.
neves asks: "I'm a student from Brazil writing this with my four year old pentium 233Mhz machine. Tired of suffering, I had decided to upgrade my machine when a golden oportunity appears: a friend of mine is comming from California to Rio de Janeiro and has offered to bring some components! Computer components in the third world are twice the price, and a generation behind ones available in the US, so now it is possible to buy an Athlon 900Mhz, an Abit motherboard and a good fan for less than US$500,00. You'd think I would just have to order what I need from a web store and have it sent to her address in California, but this hasn't been that easy. I've been trying for weeks to find a trusted store that will accept my International credit card! I've already used it to buy gifts and from Amazon to send to friends in the US (but Amazon doesn't sell motherboards). I need this information fast, as my friend's due to travel soon." I would think, with the Internet doing it's thing to erase regional barriers, that online merchants would be interested in accepting more than just "VISA, Master Card or American Express," however this seems to make this assumption invalid. So why is it that they aren't able to accept payments from International Customers?
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Computer Sites that Accept International CCs? More

Computer Sites that Accept International CCs?

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  • International Cards (Score:4)

    by Adam Wiggins ( 349 ) on Friday June 15, 2001 @03:27PM (#148248) Homepage
    As someone who works for a credit card processor, allow me to state that this issue is not a technical one, but rather a liability one. The credit card companies actually make it pretty easy to do international transactions, even currency convertion, as long as the settlement to the acquiring bank is in your native currency. (That is, a card from outside the US will be settled in dollars, and you'll be charged a slightly inflated convertion rate.)

    However, when it comes to card-not-present transactions, and especially e-commerce transactions, merchant banks get nervous. You (and indirectly, your merchant bank) is shouldering the risk of fraud for any transactions that run through your account. The merchant banks usually respond to those that take out-of-country cards by jacking the discount rate up by a ridiculous amount. Whereas you might have been paying 2.5% before now you're paying 3% or 3.5%. And that's on ALL transactions! So even if you take one international card for every 100 transactions that you do, you're still getting charged the huge rate on ALL transactions.

    Quite simply, the merchant looses money, unless they are getting a fairly substantial quantity of overseas orders. We do processing for many free software/open source related companies, and for them the US is just one small part of their customer base. But for your average hardware merchant...well, it just isn't worth it.
  • I'm new to the US so I don't have any credit....

    But I have a 700$ debit card which is fine until I want to buy plane tickets... all my tickets home cost more than this amount :-(

    I try to use my UK card which has an adequate limit, but all the US travel webiste don't accept them. And when I go to UK sites I pay more......

    Bastards

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday June 15, 2001 @11:31AM (#148250)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I really shouldn't feed the troll, but...

    I'd love to see you trying to write anything in Brazilian Portuguese. Anything, mr. High-and-mighty. I have never heard an American speak good Portuguese. It's always horribly broken, and generally much worse than a Brazilian speaking English.

    Speaking as a Brazilian myself, I have been complimented several times on my English. My team at work can travel abroad and communicate with absolutely no problems. I'd like to see how well you'd do here in Brazil, trying to communicate in Portuguese.
  • I was in your situation, around 6 months ago. I made purchases in Outpost.com and Amazon.com. Both accepted my Brazilian credit card cheerfully, and sent the items to my friend's hotel room with no problems.

    Maybe you won't find motherboards on them, but most other hardware (drives, sound boards, etc.) can be found at these stores.

  • At the risk of showing my age, "first world" was the developed democracies, "second world" was the presumably developed former Soviet bloc, "third world" was everyone else.

    Over time, "third world" came to be used to mean developing countries, and "fourth world" was introduced to describe the economic and political basket cases.

    Before someone jumps on my "presumably developed" description, at the time these terms were first used you couldn't travel anywhere in the Soviet bloc without an Intourist "guide." Some of the descriptions of vacations in the Breznev-era Soviet Union are as hilarious as they are sad. The spies got outside of the Potemkin villages, but they weren't talking.
  • Shucks, these days a guy almost needs a PII/400 just to run the latest windowmanagers, desktop environments, and web browsers. *sigh*

    I wouldn't say that it's as bad as all that. I run KDE 2.1 on an old 486-75 laptop and it gets along just fine. Granted, everything is a lot more fun on my Athlon Desktop machine, but it's a little heavy to set on my lap.

    ________________________

  • The reason why most u.s. based companies don't accept international credit cards is the verification part. I live in u.s. but have a foreign credit card(so all the bills go to my mom across the sea). Several times I've had issues buying products on internet because of the international aspect even though everything was to be shipped within u.s. to a verifiable address.

    Without exception the answer I come across is that the automatic verification process most of the time only works on domestic(to u.s.) credit cards and the main reason is matching the billing address with credit cards billing address. About one third of the times I've been able to cheat and call the company and have them punch in the credit card number thus bypassing the automatic verification system. One time they faxed me an authorization sheet and I had to reply with a signed authorization form and copy of the front and back of my credit card before anything could be billed.

    Nowadays approximately one third of the webstores do accept international credit cards. Almost none of these accept international orders but as long as the shipping address is within u.s. they'll happily bill your card. However, since about once a month they have a marketpro computer show(almost pricewatch prices) 5 min from where I live and Delaware has no sales tax it is about as cheap to just shop locally. So I haven't really bothered shopping online recently..

    Btw. if the original poster is willing to pay 500 usd for 900mhz athlon /w mb he is being ripped off.. I recently bought a system for my sister that included 700mhz duron, motherboard with integrated sound, ethernet&video, 20gig hd and 128megs of ram and all of this was under 300usd. I took it overseas so no case etc, but even with a case bought overseas the total cost was about 340usd.

  • Um, PayPal requires you to have a US billing address for your credit card...

    And can also have problems when you have a US billing address but a card issued by a non-US bank (even if the parent bank is American). Ah, the joys I had with MBNA
  • Use PayPal to send your friend some money, he can pick it up with his credit card, and then get you the parts you need on his card with your money. That is, if PayPal takes credit cards. Else you could mail him an international money order, or some equivalent of an international bankers cheque. I'm sure there are a couple ways of getting him some money, so he could do the purchasing for you.

    -Josh
  • Aren't they international? Of course I don't know how great their mb/cpu selection is (I just got a router from them). Well, anyway, good luck! Another idea, and maybe one easier to swing where you are, would be to get a K6-2/3 chip (provided your MB is one of those super7 boards (socket 7, up to 100 fsb if the term isn't familiar)), that could give you a factor of two or more increase in cpu speed.
    --
    News for geeks in Austin: www.geekaustin.org [geekaustin.org]
  • Since you really need to get those parts, why don't you communicate with your friend who's coming to visit you, get her to purchase the parts using her US credit card, have them delivered to her, then pay her in cash, or whatever when she gets to Brazil?

    I know this doesn't answer the international CC question, but it may provide a solution for you in the short term. I am using a 233 P2, and I feel your pain!

  • Golly, it was only about two years ago that the most common Linux tagline was "and you don't even need the latest hardware to run it... a 486 is fine and a P233 is a dream come true". Shucks, these days a guy almost needs a PII/400 just to run the latest windowmanagers, desktop environments, and web browsers. *sigh*
  • I'm not sure about other processors, but I know I get charged several different merchant rates:
    • The lowest rate for US Cards which the AVS (Address verification system) information matches what is on the cardholder's bank system.
    • A slightly higher rate for US cards which the AVS doesn't match.
    • A even higher rate (actually several different rates) for various international transactions.
    Note that the difference (at least on my bill) is on a per-transaction basis, but that doesn't mean that other processors do something different.

    The difference in cost is only a percent or two, but it can really add up.

    I also suspect part of the problem is that companies are very hesitant to ship to an address that doesn't pass the AVS check, and I know for a fact that most international banks don't provide AVS information.

  • Some ideas (Score:3)

    by martyb ( 196687 ) on Saturday June 16, 2001 @05:31AM (#148262)

    Here are some ideas. Note: transaction fees (often based on the amount) will likely apply.

    Idea #1; Get the cash: Don't have the cash (and that's why you want to use your credit card)? When in Italy, I needed some cash, went to a bank, and got a cash advance on my (USA) credit card. You may also be able to do this with an ATM (Automated Teller Machine), too.

    Idea #2: Wire the cash. Have you tried to wire the money from your bank to your friend's checking account in the USA? I've wired funds several times from my USA checking account to a friend's (USA) checking account. May also be known as "Electronic Funds Transfer", "Bank Wire".

    Idea #3: Send cash as Traveler's Checks. Purchase traveler's checks with the cash. (American Express is probably the most well-known provider in the USA and has offices around the world.) Then send (e.g. Federal Express) the traveler's checks to your friend who can use them like cash to deposit in her account. Then, ask her to purchase the items for you and bring them (or ship them) to you.

    Idea #4: Western Union. Here, in the USA, I've needed to quickly send funds to a friend (also in the USA). I'm sure there are other such providers around, but this is the only one that comes to mind at the moment. Show up at a branch office, fill out a form designating the recipient and receiving location, provide them the cash, and then your friend can pick up the money at the designated location.

    Idea #5: Have friend purchase with her CC. Then reimburse her when she gets to you with the items. (See Item #1 if cash is an issue for you.) Others have suggested this, but I included it here for completeness.

    Best of luck to you, and PLEASE let us know if/how you were successful!

  • He is not an American, just a thick Mick (like a Polack but even more dumb)
  • Second world? I know Brazil was always a bit pink, but I would never have called them Soviet Bloc. It seems you are mis-using the term, "second world", which is not surprising considering the level of education of the average citizen of Brazil. Do a web search on the term and educate yourself.
  • (That is, a card from outside the US will be settled in dollars, and you'll be charged a slightly inflated convertion rate.) I had always heard that using a CC actually gives you a pretty reasonable conversion rate compared with those little conversion stores. What is the best way to convert currency?
  • weezer fuckin rocks baby!
  • I'm using a 233 Mhz P2, too, and I feel no pain at all. This machine functions as router, firewall, java development environment, and slashdot client. I haven't tried running the latest and greatest realtime 3d games on it, but for everything else, it's just fine.

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