Pretty much everything on Amazon.com, except books. I'd buy a bunch of things that aren't available in MX

Credit cards are incredibly convenient unless you don't fit the shopper profile. Then you're in for hell from practically everyone.

I feel your pain, distribution agreements are the bane of a connected person's existence.

I offered about 4 times the cost of the software just to see if the problem was money (which I would have willingly paid). The developer sells their software as a one-off (ie there is no continuing fee) and I've always wondered how they make money, now I'm even more curious. I asked them if they were planning to release a new version of their software, which I'd have to pay for if they did, and they said no. How they stay afloat is beyond my understanding. Also, they're a Thai developer

Here's hoping you one day get yours shirts of snazziness

Here's a fascinating thing: I'm a subscriber of National Geographic (English version, not our local mutation) for 8 years now. I was always able to pay the subscription with my credit card until two years ago. I prolonged the subscription and all of a sudden my card was rejected. I tried to use several other cards (my other two, card of my girlfriend) with no results, and I'm trying to do so each month or so. I owe a hundred dollars to NGM and feel bad for it, because they keep sending me the magazine for more than a year now despite not paying for it.

I also hate amazon.co.uk for not being able to send video games to my country. At first I thought that once our country is in the EU the restriction will be lifted. Then I hoped that accepting euro would alleviate the problem. I resorted to eBay which is cheaper and has better P&P prices than Amazon. Sorry guys, you didn't want my money anyway. I'm not even sure where the Amazon's problem is - British Play.co.uk sends me the games without any problems (otherwise I wouldn't have Collector's Editions of Bioshock and Fallout 3).

EDIT: Just found out that Amazon.co.uk now delivers to Slovakia as well. It took them only eight or so years.

Even in Canada, I've been shut out of many purchases due to not living in the US. This has been incredibly frustrating when there are things I've wanted that were limited edition and they can't accept my non-US credit card. I then wonder if I should have some closer friends in the US who would take my money, buy it for me and then ship it my way.

Really? I've been using Paypal just fine since moving to Japan. In fact, it's the one banking method that hasn't been a pain in my ass. I think one method you can use is create another account using the country you're living in now as your home country and transfer your old account's funds into the new one.

Bingo. It's not worth it for most companies to deal with international sales issues. Taxes, localization, etc. That's where distributors come in.

It's nothing personal, it's just not worth the expense for many companies to be able to directly sell on a worldwide basis.

< posted by accident. Move along here - nothing to see >

Are there updates to the software? I wonder if they no longer have developers on staff?

Yeah I've been experiencing that a lot.

Especially with my eBaying. Most people will gladly ship to Canada but some people, for reasons unknown, will not ship here. Just yesterday, I wanted to buy Giant Bomb's Space Neon Lobsters (that have to work co-operatively) shirt and was turned down for being a filthy canuck.

This is where you tell them to get off their bullsh*t high horse and ask for a supervisor or manager. But then, I've never been very patient with people that are just that incredibly stupid.

A buddy of mine has one of these stories though. He called his housing warranty people about some issue with their microwave. They referred them to an approved contractor in the area. When my friend called the contractor they told him they were booked solid with appointments for the next four days and that he should call someone else. He said that was fine and that he could wait four days, and asked when they could get to his problem. They said, again, that they were too busy to do his job and they hung up on him.

At that point, I'd probably be spreading their business phone number around the internet as the phone number for a registered sex offender or something. Maybe on NeoGAF or the SomethingAwful boards.

The only one I can think of recently is a woman behind the register at McDonald's trying multiple times to get me to order what I wanted as a meal because it was cheaper. I had to tell her, over and over.. that I did not want a drink. I had a 1-liter (!) bottled water in my hand already. I did not want a coke, or a sprite, or a kool-aid, or what the heck ever else they had. I finally won a small victory by telling her that if she so desperately wanted to ring it up that way then fine, but she could have the drink, because I wasn't going to take it when I left. She rang up a meal. She filled up a coke, and when my chicken sandwich was ready she proceeded to slide in my direction both my food and the drink I tried so very hard not to order. I got a "Sir, you forgot your drink!" as I walked away, taking a drink of my water.

In 2001 I payed $42 on ebay for an unopened Greatest Hits copy of Symphony of the Night. I had emailed Konami asking them to make the game available and they told me to look at a used game store.

In college one of my friends always wore ugly sweaters with holes in them. One day we got a call one from another friend who said we had to get over to the mall because he saw this sick yellow sweater and it had a hole torn in it. We went to the mall, found the sweater, laughed hysterically at it, and went up to the counter to pay for it. The woman at the counter would not sell it to us because it was damaged, and it was last one they had so it wasn't like we could buy a new one and damage it ourselves (that also would not have been as funny). We offered her 5 extra bucks for the damaged sweater, but she refused. I think it was JCPennys or Dillards.

Is this because of contingency work or conflicted out of better more lucrative work?

Maybe something changed...the last time I tried (and argued with their customer service) was nearly two years ago now. I honestly never thought of setting up a second account, but don't feel like it's something I should have to do in the first place. After all, they allowed me to take as much money as I wanted from my brick-and-mortar bank, as well as spend it...just not directly; I had to get third parties to do it on my behalf....nor did they allow me to put the money back to the exact same place I got it from!