Can I benefit from Apple Services (MobileMe as number 1) in syria?

[MohamadAkkad]

I am now under the process of moving back to syria, and I was wondering if I can use Master card or Visa card in syria to renew my MobileMe subscription?

I know that I can buy MobileMe subscription box, but I need to increase my disk space too.

For the availability of the Credit cards in syria, they are available.

So anyone have any idea?

[fangpyre]

I can't say for sure in this regards.
But I think it won't.
Apple, like many US companies, are forbidden from doing business with Syria.

So you have to problems there, that link you to Syria.
Your credit card and your IP address.
You can get a non-IP address, but what about the Credit Card?
Also, would you send your credit card thru those channels?

[MohamadAkkad]

I have contacted Apple MobileMe support chat about that, and they do not know. However, they did not told me any thing about not being able to do that and if they use IP to know where am I, so most of us cant use itunes out of there country, for me I use a free US account in UAE and I did not face any problems with that.

However it is not the end of the world if I did not benefit from all the services in syria.

Do you know that carrefour is Aleppo, Syria are selling MacBooks? yes they do for sure, as I saw it, so I think things are getting better between syria and USA.

[fangpyre]

Apple doesn't actively check if the market you are accessing is the same as the country you are in.
But they DO know where you are.
But they do block users from banned countries from using iTunes, regardless of the account you are using.

No, I didn't know that Carrefour is selling them.
But be careful as there is no official agent in Syria for Apple.
Though Apple products are being sold actively.

[venky83]

Sorry I am late in replying to this. I am not really sure if you would get a Syrian bank to issue a VISA/MasterCard branded credit card because VISA/MasterCard do not do business in Syria because of the sanctions. You may use your non-Syria based VISA/MasterCard i.e. UAE issued cards in Syria because those transactions gets routed to Jordan to connect to VISA/MasterCard authorization servers.

In Syria, you will even find HP and IBM products and support for it from HP and IBM happens from their Dubai offices. This is a loophole used by many people to do business. I am not sure that there are any Apple authorized dealers in Syria.

There is a gentleman by the name of Basel Al Hassan, who is the only Mac service guy in Damascus. There was an interesting article on wired.com about how he helped two americans recover their MacBooks - The Mac Guru of Damascus in the Case of the Missing Laptops