Keep/get a US credit card/debit card w/Visa capabilities, and use a US-based remailer firm (Web search will find you plenty). Have you Kindle shipped to the remailer, and then forwarded on to you. Use the US-based card (tied to your remailer address) for purchases, and you’re set.

Note that Kindle currently only support US English, there’s no support for foreign-language character-sets nor content at this time.

What a great tip, we think Amazon is gearing up for an international launch of the Kindle soon, so hopefully this ‘hack’ shouldn’t be around for long!

To the first poster, getting a US based credit card is the whole problem, if you own a Kindle but live outside the US then you cannot get a US credit card, same as if Americans try to get a Japanese or British or Australian credit card…can’t be done unless you have some tangible connection to the place.
Thanks to the one who supplied the work around, I will try it and let you know.

Thanks.

Sorry to say but it doesn’t work. When you finally get to the point where you get must click to purchase you get this message “We could not process your order because of geographical restrictions on the product which you were attempting to purchase. Please refer to the terms of use for this product to determine the geographical restrictions.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.”

ALthough it does not tell you when trying to download kindle books, when trying to download MP3’s it does tell you that a US credit card is required to verify residency even if you use a gift code.
Shame, it would have been cool if it worked…

Nope - their geo-filter has obviously gotten round this problem - it didn’t work for me.

This worked like a charm. I have one problem though: The book won’t open on the kindle. It says:
The selected item could not be opened. If you purchased this item from Amazon, you can try redownloading the item from Content Manager. For additional help, please call Kindle Customer Service at 1-866-321-8851 or 206-266-0927.

I have checked and double-checked that the kindle registered to my account has the correct serial number. I do suspect the problem to be that the kindle itself isn’t registered to any account, since I can’t connect to the whispernet. Is there any way to get the kindle to talk to Amazon through USB or can it connect to a normal wlan?

As a last resort, I guess it’s possible to send it to someone in the US to get them to register it, and send it back, but that would be a lot of hassle… Any good advice?

I also downloaded a demo-portion of a book on mobipocket.com, and that shows just fine, so this has to be a drm issue.

One last trick is to get a prepaid US visa card from a friend living in the US (you need to do so just because there isn’t any bank that will ship a card outside the US, even if it is a gift card).

Then use an amazon gift certificate for the paiement and the US prepaid visa/US address for the amazon geographic control

One last remark : you will need to get the kindle file from your computer (kindle acount on amazon) if you are not in the US !!

The problem is to get the US prepaid visa if you have no friend in the united states !!

I’m an American expat, and I’ve kept my US-based credit cards and used the method I detailed above and it works just fine for me, FWIW.

Try and remove all foreign info from your Amazon account. I use a separate Amazon account with a gmail addy that has no credit card information on it. It only has a US address and I add gift certificates as needed.

Make sure you download books into the document folder.

If the Kindle does not recognize the books, try deregistering. Then wait an hour and re-register. There should not be a geo-filter blocking Kindle downloads because an American customer could be travelling or working abroad.

I’ve purchased and opened over 60 kindle books on a Kindle that has never been turned on in the US. Open all books you purchase/download immediately to check for problems even if you’re not reading it just yet. Deleting and redownloading is the first step I’d take. Deregistering and reregistering is the second.

Thank you so much for this info. I am trying to give a Kindle to my brother in Canada for a birthday present but I couldn’t exactly figure out how to get it to work there. But I don’t mind if he uses my credit card to buy stuff and he can just use his computer to get the content.

Thanks a lot for the Kindle purchasing tip! Worked a treat. I will be able to download while I’m in the US and then I’ll use your system. Great!!!

I have tried everything. I have a foreign card with US billing address so Amazon let me spend the 359 bucks on the kindle but now I can’t use that same card to spend 9 bucks on a book. They keep telling me that my account is fine and I shouldn’t have issues. Well I certainly am!

YEAH - I can amend my previous post. I deleted all payment methods so my 1-click only had a US address, NO credit card. Bought a gift cert and applied it and BINGO, 1-click works without a card and just charges the gift cert. YIPPEE!! I’m so happy.

Is there any way to activate the evdo wireless access via a cell account in india so that I can use kindle in india and actually have it work over the cell network to download books and articles?

I tried the piece of advice #9 and it worked perfectly (i removed y french email !!)
at last !
Great !
Many thanks to all contributors of this page

I am an American living in Bangkok, Thailand. My sister just sent me a new Kindle and i also had the message “The selected item could not be opened. If you purchased this item from Amazon, you can try redownloading the item from Content Manager. For additional help, please call Kindle Customer Service at 1-866-321-8851 or 206-266-0927″.
I followed the advice from #9 and I now can read all of my books!
Many thanks, Caroline!

I did the same thing as commentor #13, remove the credit card added the gift certificate information, I also deregistered my Kindle and added again.

Clicked on 1-click and away I went. I’ll be doing that going forward! Who Hoo!

#17 November 2008

Friend sent me Kindle as a gift.

1. Went to package express out of Sumas, requested a us address (only charged if anything is sent to them - they will email if something arrives, you choose dispose of it, pick it up or they forward it to you (all for a charge).

2. called mastercard (cdn issue) and gave supplementary US address

3. Set up gmail account with location as united states.

4. set up an account on Amazon.com, using gmail account as email address, US mail address did not populate credit card info.

5. Contacted Amazon Kindle and had them register the Kindle as I am not in Whispernet

6. purchased email gift certificate and put it on my account came in minutes.

7. choose book, used claim code of gift cert as form of payment and within seconds had book.

Before doing the above had a .ca email address and was prevented because of my geographical location.

Changed the email removed the credit card info and I am now enjoying a book on my kindle.

Hope that helps my fellow Canadian and International Kindle owners out.

set up an account on Amazon.com through gmail (put location as