10 January 2016

Switching countries for Google Play


As a reminder to myself more than anything. We are, as a family, international jetsetters. So, it's very annoying when Google messes with our shit with country restrictions, especially when we are trying to spend money with them.

Finn spent some of his Christmas money on a Google Play card so he could indulge his penchant for games and what he calls music. Unfortunately, because he also spends time in England, his phone was also registered there and so the € Google Play he bought wouldn't work when he tried. The web is full of people with the same problem all giving varying suggestions that work or not, but last night I spent three hours trying to get it sorted for Finn and wanted to document what I did to make it less painful next time. Right from the get-go, the instructions aren't very clear. For instance, the troubleshooting info given here:



doesn't make it clear that the Settings being talked about are on the computer, rather than the phone. A lot of the suggestions have involved adding a card to the account, but Finn doesn't have a card being only 12 (at time of writing). The solution was to log into his GMail account on my computer, go to the settings page, edit his address to make sure it was our French one. Then I had to add my bank card to his account, clear cache and data from the Play Store on his phone, then reboot it.

Once it came back up, I could buy something from his Play Store, which was still showing prices in £ at first, but when you actually bought something was shown in €. I picked something that was only €0.10, but ended up getting a refund anyway and thereafter I was able to enter Finn's Google Play voucher. Lastly, I removed my bank card from his account - just in case :)

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