Assumptions
For this chapter of my Guide, I assume that:
You have enrolled in, and successfully setup, Unblock-us.com service.
You have in your possession one of the following financial products:
- Canadian AMEX;
- VISA, MasterCard, AMEX, or any other credit card with a US billing address;
- PayPal account with a confirmed US address;
- “Virtual” VISA from Entropay.
My experience is with a Canadian Amex. If you have items 2, 3, or 4, then you don’t need to concern yourself with these instructions. Move on to my next chapter.
Process: Netflix
Ensure that your Unblock-us.com service is operational. Do not proceed unless you see in the upper right-hand portion of your browser window the Unblock-us.com service confirmation message (“This device is setup correctly. It is using our DNS.”)
Set the Netflix Region Picker to Canada and click [Update].
Create a Netflix Canada account, using any Canadian credit card for payment.
Set the Unblock-us-com Netflix Regional Picker to USA and click [Update]. This will allow you to watch US content with your Canadian Netflix account.
Process: Hulu Plus, Pandora, Amazon Prime, other US streaming services
Ensure that your Unblock-us.com service is operational. Do not proceed unless you see in the upper right-hand portion of your browser window the Unblock-us.com service confirmation message (“This device is setup correctly. It is using our DNS.”)
The sign-up process is different for each US-only streaming service. But for payment they all require a valid US zip code that passes your Amex card’s Address Verification System (AVS) check.
To generate a valid zip code:
- Start with only the numeric portion of your postal code, and then add zeroes between the numbers. For example, if your postal code is J2K 1L2, then your zip code would be 20102.
- Validate your zip code on the US Postal Service website. If it is legitimate, enter it into the Netflix payment form. If it is not a legitimate US zip code, try adding those zeroes to the end of the numeric portion of your postal code (e.g. 21200) and increment by one (e.g. 21201) up to seven (e.g. 21207) until you find a valid zip. In my example, 20102 is valid for Dulles VA.
Enter your credit card number, CVV2 (the four-digit card security code on the front of your Amex or the three-digit security code on the back of your VISA or MasterCard), and expiry date.
Complete the remaining sign-up steps and activate your membership.
At this point, the service will either accept your credit card information or decline it with an error message that relates to your spurious zip. If you receive this message, try your zip code with any of your other credit cards. If all fails, you will have to use an Entropay “virtual” VISA as your payment method.
Hows and Whys
VISA developed the Address Verification System in 1990 to help airlines and direct marketers reduce the risk of fraudulent MOTO (mail order/telephone order; otherwise known as card-not-present) transactions. At that time, MOTO merchants could call a toll free number and use their touchtone telephones to validate the cardholder zip code. The zip either matched or it didn’t. Simple.
The problem, of course, is that banks are banks: they don’t invest in new technology unless they absolutely must. It won’t surprise you, therefore, to learn that AVS has barely changed since it launched a quarter-century ago. All it validates are numbers, not letters. As a legacy anti-fraud technology, this is about as sophisticated as a stone axe. AVS was never intended to be used for anything even remotely resembling international e-commerce.
What does any of this have to do with Hulu Plus or any other US streaming media service, you ask? Well, Canadian postal codes are alphanumeric, right? That means AVS is capable only of verifying the numeric portion of Canadian postal codes and the numeric portion of the street address. AVS does not confirm the city, state/province, country, or any other part of your billing profile that contains letters.
As long as the USPS-authenticated zip code you provide contains the three numbers in your postal code, in theory that’s all AVS needs – other than a correct account number, CVV2, and expiry – to confirm that you are the owner of your credit card. In practice, however, the level of validation required for either a VISA or MasterCard depends on the bank that issued it. Some banks are notorious hardasses; others simply don’t give a shit. That’s why your Canadian VISA or MasterCard may work, or it may not.
Amex, on the other hand, is not issued by your bank but directly by American Express. Amex uses its own AVS with a looser set of validation rules. Submit that hokey zip code to Hulu or any other US service, and you’re much more likely with Amex to receive a positive authorization response than with any other credit card.
Next
Setup your Roku streaming player. The device is awesome. Its manufacturer is a fussy little geobitch.