Bump.
For Kindle users in Taiwan: have you noticed a big drop in book availability over the past few days? Lots of things that were available as a Kindle edition suddenly aren’t? Or is it just me?
I’m using amazon.com, with a Taiwanese credit card.
EDIT: Oh, I also seem to be registered with Amazon Canada, somehow. Years ago I used to occasionally switch countries, but I thought that wasn’t really an option anymore.
Like what have you seen disappear?
I buy a lot of Kindle books but actually haven’t bought one yet this month. Just checked and everything looks normal, as far as I can tell.
The key difference I see is in my wishlist. The Kindle books I’ve added are still in the list, but rather than having the price visible, I see “Currently unavailable.” It’s like this for well over half of the books on my list. When I click through to the book’s page, there’s no Kindle edition listed.
I stopped adding things to my wishlist in early 2017. The last six things I have there are books, though, and all seem to have a Kindle edition available (with a price for each, in US$).
It’s weird that items on your list would become unavailable. Quick check online doesn’t pull up any changes. Maybe somebody else will chime in with an experience like yours.
I’m digging around in the Kindle forums right now, and it seems like it’s happening to other people as well; still unclear if this is a temporary glitch (in which case, fine), or like when Netflix stopped letting people overseas use a VPN to get American content. If the latter, whoah. The number of books available to me will have plummeted.
Are you using an American or Taiwanese credit card with your account? I suspect one issue may be that I’m using a Taiwanese credit card from Taiwan yet shopping in the American store.
I just bought a Kindle book on amazon.com (US) a couple of minutes ago using a Taiwanese address and a Taiwanese credit card. Not using the wishlist feature though.
Can you have a look for A Culinary History of Taipei? If I go to that book when Amazon knows it’s me, there’s no Kindle edition. But if I go to that book through a Private Browser window, the Kindle edition is available. And it was available for me “normally” last week.
There are plenty of books I can still presumably buy - but a giant chunk of the ones on my wishlist are suddenly not available for me to buy.
Thanks!
Curious and possibly related: a couple of weeks ago the items in my wishlist started displaying the NT$ price, and no longer the American dollar price, although if I clicked through to the item, I got an American dollar price. I was always billed an American price.
I can see/select the Kindle edition. So weird you can’t. Hope this is not something that affects all Taiwanese Kindle users.
I use a Taiwanese address and thus pay the 5% VAT when buying via Amazon. What address do you use? Maybe it’s the combination of Taiwanese credit card + overseas address and they want to force you to pay the VAT?
Looks like Bezos’ notorious pricing engine is still working! 
the USD 1.80 difference is the VAT (5%)
Thanks ma3xiu1 and bojack - both informative and worrying!
Addresses: my “normal” Amazon account address is set to Taiwan as the default, although I occasionally toggle to Canadian addresses as well. The [Taiwanese] credit card is with a Taiwanese address. In Accounts & Lists / Your Content and Devices / Preferences / Country-Region Settings, it’s set to Canada. So maybe it’s the Taiwan + Canada mismatch it suddenly no longer likes?
OK, so, I’ve changed Country-Region Settings to Taiwan, and … nope. Still many books (I think the same books) unavailable.
I use credit cards with an American address. I also toggle back and forth between my US address and my Taiwan address (to learn which items will ship here). I’ve had no problems that I know of.
Hmm, thanks. I guess this has reached the stage of waiting a day or two and hoping the problem goes away.
Mildly interesting: after switching my Country-Region Settings to Taiwan, I do now see the Daily Deals. But the Wish List is still mostly “Currently Unavailable.”
Next step, which I won’t try for a few days: using my Canadian credit card instead, and switching the region back to Canada.
I just got back from a few days in China, and I’m idly wondering if that’s somehow related. Lots of different things I tried to access were messed up while I was there - I hope the mess hasn’t come back with me.
EDIT: OK, I just tried switching Country-Region Settings to a totally legitimate United States address. If I do that, my wishlist is back to showing the prices of items, although it’s still showing NT$ prices (yet US$ prices if I click through to the item itself). Haven’t tried buying with that yet.
Do you currently use a VPN? That might interfere with Amazon’s logic.
No, not at all. Haven’t for a few years now.
I’ve found a couple of complaints about the same issue in other forums, posted this weekend - not sure what country they’re in. So it’s presumably not just me.
EDIT: Oh, but wait! I was sort of using VPNs in China when I jumped on a friend’s hotspot - and they were using Taiwanese data that had them hopping under the Great Firewall. So who knows, it’s not inconceivable that my account has somehow been flagged.
Question for others: what country-region are you set to? This setting is in Accounts & Lists / Your Content and Devices / Preferences / Country-Region Settings, so it may be totally different from the address you ship to, or the address your credit card is connected to.
Long ago I used to sometimes switch my Country-Region, in part because of price differences, but mainly because availability differed, although it’s not something I’d done in a few years. I believe before I always chose a region (without giving an address), and always switched between East Asia and Canada - but now you need to actually give an address, so I’d need to choose “Taiwan”, rather than “East Asia.” I was set for Canada until yesterday; switching to a totally real (ahem, ahem) American address seems to have fixed the wishlist issues for now, even though it makes my account significantly more illegitimate.
My mother also uses my Kindle account in Canada, which probably violates terms of service somewhere. I don’t know if that could be an issue.
I’ve read that in the past year Amazon has been cracking down on people who claim to live in one country, but seem to live in another, so perhaps I’ve tripped some kind of flag.