Cannot create an account in New Zealand, defaults to USA

[chrismudg43]

Hi, 

We bought an Arlo Ultra pack, (it was our second one as the original cameras would no longer charge) I live in New Zealand. I set up my account which is very basic email and password, no box to select my country although my base station is set to NZ time. 

Now that the 3 month trial has run out I would like to purchase a subscription but it defaults to USA. 

After hours of searching and waiting for support I'm told to set up a new account with a new email address, I've done this and of course no box for the country selection. I thought I may have missed this step the first time. Now I'm stuck, I've used both my email addresses and still my account subscription defaults to USA. I think I'm ready to take the cameras back for a refund as clearly they are not designed to be used outside of the USA. Has anyone had this problem? Is there a work around? Is there a fix? I spent an hour waiting on the phone for support to be told what I have done and it hasn't worked.

Is it possible to delete the accounts? We don't use a VPN, just bog standard internet so I'm unsure how the portal picks up that I am in the USA not New Zealand. Surely our IP address comes from New Zealand. 

Any ideas or thoughts are welcomed! Thanks.

[jguerdat]

NZ can get plans:

https://kb.arlo.com/88/What-are-the-available-Arlo-subscription-plans-and-how-much-cloud-recording-i...

However, it depends on where the system is set up. By any chance are you using a VPN so the system thinks it's in the US? The selection is automatic - you don't get to select a country at any point.

[chrismudg43]

Hi, we live in New Zealand and do not use a VPN, we use a pc connected to the internet so I don’t know why it picks up that we are in the USA. There is no way to change it and I’m at a loss at what to do. Arlo cannot seem to help either? Surely they can do something with my account their end?

[jguerdat]

I just went partially through the subscription process here and don't see a USA thing anyplace. I suppose the currency could be US but that's all. Where/how do you see this? Have you just tried to complete the process anyways?

[chrismudg43]

I've stepped through the process and screen shot these into the attached word document.

I know its a US page and I know there is a NZ currency page, I want to know why my NZ created email address/ account defaults to US. It shouldn't. Then When I search Arlo NZ Subscriptions I can see what's available, there is an NZ flag at the top of the page, but when I try to purchase I need to log in, I use my account and it straight away defaults back to US.

Someone at Arlo needs to sort this out, its a complete farce and shouldn't happen. I've wasted so much time on this its ridiculous.

[chrismudg43]

screen shots

[StephenB]

I don't know exactly how Arlo detects the country - there are some services that attempt to do this via the IP address, but that doesn't always give the right result.  Arlo certainly is using a service like that, but they might also be checking location in the browser.

Perhaps try one of those services and see if it detects New Zealand:

• https://www.ip2location.com/demo
• https://tools.keycdn.com/geo

If they do detect New Zealand, then I suggest checking your browser settings.  They might also be part of the puzzle.

• Is the language setting in your browser set to "English (New Zealand)"? 
• You might also try configuring the browser to let all websites access your location w/o asking (though if you do that, you should change it back after you try subscribing again).

Did you try changing the country when you got to the billing address page in the process???

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@chrismudg43 wrote:

Someone at Arlo needs to sort this out ...

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Agreed.  @JamesC, any suggestions on how to proceed? 

[ShayneS]

HI @chrismudg43

I have escalated your case & someone from support will be reaching out to you as soon as possible. I have provided your escalations number here: 42502181

[chrismudg43]

Hi ShayneS, 

Thank you, I do hope someone can contact me today and sort this out, the problem has just doubled 😞

We also have an Arlo essential system with 2 cameras watching our commercial unit and see that the trial has also expired 2 days ago, we cannot subscribe with that system either as it also defaults to US currency/ plans. These camera were installed with different email addresses (NZ addresses, NZ ISP,). It is super important we get those ones recording as this is our business unit and need to keep an eye on things. I'm happy to try creating a new account on my mobile phone instead of a PC but I really want to use my email addresses that we are currently using. I don't want to create new email addresses solely for Arlo.

Someone suggested checking my IP address and I can confirm it all tells me I am in NZ and I use an NZ ISP etc so I just don't know where its going wrong and how to fix it.

Its Friday morning here and we would like it sorted out before the end of the day?

Thanks, Christina

[chrismudg43]

Hi StephenB,

Thank you for your reply, I have checked and our IP address does indeed belong to New Zealand.

I tried to change the default country on the purchase page but it is not changeable, I cannot delete United States.

I also tried using Firefox but this didn't change anything. I'm currently using both Microsoft and google chrome.

I opened up my location and reset all the cookies under Arlo, reloaded the page and signed back in but still I default to US.

Still no luck. 

[chrismudg43]

I may have found a work around but I really need my email accounts deleted for this to work -

If I create a new account on my mobile phone and re add all my cameras it does default to the NZ payment page 🙂 YAY

However:

I've used my last email address for our home system and now need to sort out our commercial unit system, we have no more email addresses we can use for that one so I need someone to urgently delete that account so I can set it up on my mobile phone.

Who can help me?  I realise it must be getting late in the US and would really like this sorted before our weekend.

Thanks, 

[ShayneS]

@chrismudg43

Unfortunately, I am not able to assist with deleting an accounts email. You can try contacting support once again to see if they can help with this workaround while your escalation case is underway. 

[chrismudg43 · Accepted solution]

I have found the solution:

DO NOT Create and Arlo account on your PC if you don't live in the US.

It seems it must be created on your mobile phone for the Arlo Portal to understand that you live in a different country.

After 5 days of tedious to'ing & fro'ing I've had to create new temporary accounts on my phone and use them while Arlo  deletes my original ones so I can revert back to email addresses that are relevant.

I've signed up one lot of our cameras to a subscription in NZ Currency and will trial that before I set up the other one. (Business premises and Home premises)

Thank you to everyone who has put forward advice. Chris