I have an annoyance purchasing watch faces or anything else in the new ConnectIQ Store via Garmin payment because apparently because I am currently physically in West Africa. The CIQ wpp won’t let me purchase anything unless I use a VPN on my phone and then kill and restart the app.
I see a floating notification “The app is not available for purchase.” I have a friend in Zimbabwe that was similarly unable to purchase a Garmin face for the same reason and was unable to deduce how to solve it without my support. He only persisted as much as he did because he’s a huge Deadpool fan. It seems like Garmin is geoblocking Africa in general from store transactions.
There is an authorized Garmin dealer in Harare and several in South Africa. Blocking those customers from these features is “not bloody lekker” as they might say down south
Garmin Pay also works fine in Africa anywhere that tap to pay is supported but enrollment to transfer my bank card preciously enrolled on my Fenix 7X to my new Fenix 8 also would not work until I turned on a VPN and restarted Garmin Express Mobile.
I don’t understand why this makes financial sense if you have a valid credit card as a customer. There are authorized Garmin dealers in various countries in Africa and Garmin is very popular amongst diplomats, expats, and people with an ability to pay.
