First World Relocation Problems

Since adulthood, I’ve embraced the idea of “Where I lay my head is home”. I started with moving to different cities in Southern Ontario, then a bigger move to British Columbia.

All of those moves were pragmatic ones.

When I moved to Waterloo, it was because the cost of living was lower than Toronto, the job opportunity was higher, and it was relatively close to Toronto. I figured I would be spending most of my weekdays working and living life, and could still go to visit my friends “back home” easily.

After the BlackBerry layoffs and it’s ripple effect through the region, my husband and I moved to Mississauga, again for the balance of work availability and cost of living. We didn’t want to live in downtown Toronto, but Mississauga was close enough for a commute to work.

Most people expect a bigger reason for our move to Vancouver, but it was always only about the weather.

Both of us were done with the temperature extremes in Southern Ontario, having to deal with -30 degrees and literal mountains of snow in the winter or +40 and no wind in the summer.

These smaller moves helped prepare me for our bigger and more frequent relocations in the past few years.

But it turned out that international relocation came with its own nuances that you’d never expect until you did it.

By any account, these nuances are first world problems.

I share them because I’ve had people ask me about such logistics, and I’m curious about them because it surprises me that in a world where every wannabe-influencer talks about being a digital nomad, the corporations we are so tied to in daily life have no infrastructure for supporting easy movement around the world (at least not beyond short vacations).

So here is a random list of annoyances I found when moving:

Closing Accounts

I like to keep a clean digital footprint, and often do sweeps of my active accounts to close ones I no longer use. Leaving Canada gave me a little nerd dream project to really look at which accounts I would never need again (especially knowing I could open a new one if I ever returned to Canada).

The varying degrees of ease in closing accounts was mindboggling. The easiest ones allowed me to click a button, send an email, or fill in a form. Some had multiple steps but I could relatively easily “quit” them.

Some took longer, or required me to send in ID. The ones that were annoying were subscriptions where I pre-paid for a year for savings, and they had a strict no-refund policy.

Then there were the ones where canceling an account was effectively impossible. There was one that said the only thing I could do was unsubscribe from their marketing newsletter, but couldn’t close my online account with them. There were many that required I call them, which was an extra layer because I had waited to close some of these accounts after I actually was in Spain.

And then there were the websites that blocked visitor IPs that didn’t originate from Canada. Or streaming services that I had pre-paid for a year, but wouldn’t allow me to use them outside of Canada.

I think most people wouldn’t bother with all of this but, as I said, closing unused accounts is something I did often anyway.

Workarounds

Accounts I couldn’t close

For these, I changed the email address on file to a “junk email address” that I don’t use for anything else. Just a simple way for me to sequester those accounts.

Accounts I Had to Call To Close

For the accounts I really needed to close, I ended up using Skype to call them when I could, since my Microsoft account used to come with 60 Skype-to-landline minutes a month. For the rest, I just changed the email address on file.

Companies/Services Blocked Because of IP

I had to use a VPN service for these. I’m sure some of them have Ts & Cs that “prohibit” use, but honestly…I can’t even access their website from outside of Canada? Ridiculous.

Account Phone Numbers, 2FA and Cell Phone Costs

Since we’re on account maintenance, there was also an issue when it came to accounts I wanted to keep.

2-Factor Authentication through SMS messages have become the norm in Canada, and not all companies offer an option for a security code yet. Add on to this that most will only allow the use of a Canadian number, this meant I still needed to have a Canadian number that would receive texts.

The cost of cell phone plans in Canada is absolutely insane. Most call and text plans (without any data) start at $25/month. In comparison, for €10/month in Spain I could get 60GB, unlimited national calls, 500 international minutes and 7GB of roaming in the EEUU. Similarly, in Ireland I pay €20/month for unlimited data, 100 minutes of national calling, 100 minutes of international calling and 40GB of EU & UK roaming.

Workaround

I ended up porting our numbers to NumberBarn, although they still don’t receive all 2FA codes.

Regional Accounts for International Companies

One thing I didn’t expect with all my accounts is that my accounts with global companies like Amazon or Sephora weren’t international.

It turns out that Amazon’s customer accounts are regional, so I had to cancel my account in Canada and get a new subscription for Spain. Amazon Canada would allow me to ship to Spain, but it would be treated as an international purchase (with international shipping and duties).

Sephora was a surprise as well, as I had no problem using my Canadian account in the US. Before we left, I had also switched my cosmetics to all things I could order from Sephora so I had one less adjustment to make.

Well, good thing that’s a creature comfort because I also had to create a Spanish-specific account. Sephora Spain also offered different brands than Sephora North America–so some brands like Clinique were fine, but I couldn’t get Living Proof or Rare Beauty.

Some digital-only services like Disney+ worked relatively seamlessly, serving up regional content as though I was on vacation.

But others like Uber would seem to work the same way, but had regional rules that are difficult to find. For example, in Canada if the driver can’t find you, they cancel the ride and charge you a fee. In Spain, they’ll just keep sending you a different driver until you cancel the ride.

Workaround

None. This was simply a learning experience and I had to adjust to what they offered.

Apple App Store Regionality

This one gets its own section because it was so absurd.

So I generally understand the concept of regional app stores in Apple from what I assume was regionalized iTunes stores when they mostly sold music.

Changing the region for your app store is done by changing your payment information and billing address.

Simple, right?

Well, turns out you can’t change your payment information if you have an active subscription on your account.

Even if the subscription was free.

And there is no way to cancel a subscription mid-term.

And if you’re part of an Apple Family plan, the app store region is tied to the “primary” account holder’s payment location.

This meant we couldn’t change our app store region until after all of our subscriptions expired.

Including an MLS subscription we had recently activated as it came with our season tickets to the Vancouver White Caps.

This would have been fine, except there were a lot of “daily life” apps that were only in the Spanish App Store:

• Various grocery stores. Some only allowed account creation through the app, and some only allowed getting a digital loyalty card through the app.
• Cell phone carrier. All of the account management was through the app, with limited functions through a WhatsApp chat or their web account interface.
• Cinemas. Similar to grocery stores and cell phone carriers, most functionality and loyalty was managed through the app. Luckily, the cinema we frequented offered plastic loyalty cards.
• Meal card management. In Spain, employees have a meal allowance and this is usually paid through Tarjeta Gourmet–a company that manages meal allowance distribution and approvals through merchant codes. The actual card is a pre-paid credit card, but like above, most of the management is done through an app or their website. Since every worker in Spain was used to using the app, our office manager had a heck of a time figuring out how we could activate our accounts without it.

Workaround

I eventually created a second Apple ID coded to Spain. On my iPhone, I would log out of my main account, log into this secondary account, download the regional apps, log out of the secondary account and back into the main account.

First world problem but insanely annoying.

After our MLS subscription expired, we tried changing our app store region but the music catalog was different, which was a pain in the butt for my husband.

We also lost access to movies and shows we had purchased from the Canadian app store.

Ultimately, I’m still coded to Canada and use my 2-ID workaround because I can’t be bothered to change the region until we know we’re living somewhere for more than a year.

Even when we do decide to change the region, I only have a 5-day window each month when our Apple One account is up for monthly renewal. This is because I would need to allow the membership lapse, and only have that 5 days to change regions and reactivate Apple One to not lose our Apple One access. Mostly this is fine, except for the music catalog licensing differences and our backup storage.