Not available in Israel

 

 

This is a signup form for Microsoft. You'll note that country/region is not optional. Only USA is available. Come to Israel and experience this continuously. The credit card that you have used for decades doesn't allow non-US addresses. Paypal didn't for years. I'm still unsure what is going on with Paypal. You'll find the same with all kinds of online shopping, with video streaming. They only work in the USA. What you learn when you come to Israel is that the USA is the world's superpower and a shockingly high percentage of technology and services come from the USA. But when you move to Israel your ability to access these become seriously limited.

I am the treasurer for a non-profit in the USA but cannot access the bank account because the bank will only allow US phone numbers for security checks. Every board meeting is an adventure for me to coordinate with someone in the USA to gain access. 

Oh, you can just switch to Israel companies. Oh yeah, keep living in a dream. First of all, if you don't speak Hebrew, this is very difficult. You can't read the website or the statement. Second of all, Israeli customer service, while improving, ain't the same. We bought a refrigerator over here that is showing malfunction alerts. Even though we have a warranty, we cannot get the service people on the phone. We have been trying for weeks. What we thought was their website, wasn't really their website. We finally reached someone and scheduled an appointment after being grilled about the problem by the woman on the phone. They gave us a range of the time the fix it guy would show up. He came and said he doesn't fix that brand. 

If you are such a tzadick that you can throw away all material concerns, well hats off to you. Is your family the same? Will your spouse and every child in your family be able to handle the endless frustrations? You don't have a right to overwhelm them with your Zionistic ambitions. If they are going to be ruined, you cannot move to Israel. And you'd be surprised how many people can't handle it, people you were sure could handle it, cannot.