I Think I Must Have This Rant Every Year (PSN Accounts and Moving Countries)

[Lrdfancypants]

SamuelRSmith said:

Why - oh why - can I not use a non-UK credit card on my UK account? Or why can I not change the region of my account to the country I am currently living in?

It's ridiculous, because I can't use vouchers from any region other than the UK, either. In addition, I don't have a UK-based credit card, only a UK-based debit card, which Sony has never allowed me to use on PSN account.

Son'y official answer to this problem is to create a new account in that region. Thus, losing my trophies (not that I have many), and my progress on any PSN-account based games - ie, all those with persistent multiplayer and even some nowadays on the campaigns.

What I end up doing is buying a UK-based voucher off of Amazon using my UK-based debit card (as you cannot use foreign cards to buy PSN vouchers on Amazon either). However, this is never a quick-and-easy process, for some unknown reason, the purchase always fails validation in the first automated transaction, and I have to wait several hours for it to be manually approved. I don't know whether that part is an issue on Sony, Amazon, or my bank, but it still pisses me off.

Even if I were to create another account here, I'd be losing it all AGAIN by next year, anyway, as I'll have moved to another country.

Migrating countries has become much more common for our generation. An international jobs marketplace means that you can always find better money overseas, decreased cost of travel and communication has made it an acceptable option. Why claim that your console is "region free" if you cannot use most of the features on it in another region without jumping through a huge number of hoops?

I have always thought this is stupid. 

I had this happen on the 360 just from linking an email that was created in another country. The whole damn console changed languages and regions.  

MS support told me the same nonsense. Delete account and start over losing everything included purchased content or deal with it and for my troubles they'd give me a $10 credit. 

Edit:  I didn't even move.  I just changed the email and it happened to me.