Nil Einne:

Omnom: Is there anyone who used shipito when ordering a N4?
How much did you pay for shipping + that $8.50 fee?
I've ordered my one off the play store. Just wanting to know if it actually went through, haha.
I got the email/receipt for it in my gmail account, but there is no way of telling that any money was deducted from my bank account.
Oh well....
*sigh*

Per Google policy and other experience, money should not be deducted until the phone is ready to ship by Google. You will probably get an authorisation hold for the full amount (also called preauthorisation), but that will expire after a few days. If the authorisation hold work, it should work in the future. But you can't be sure if it's going to work until it does a few weeks from now (depending on when you ordered). This also means you should either make sure you have enough money in your account (if a debit card) or you don't get too close to your credit limit. I'm not entirely sure whether Google will give you another chance to fix it if fails after you've waited so long.

BTW, regarding my earlier problem, I later tried my old Visa credit card. (As stated, I'm moving to Mastercard from Visa. My Visa hasn't yet been cancelled.) I didn't bother to change address this time in ASB (still my real NZ address) and it still worked. I guess ASB Visa does no billing address verification but perhaps the ASB Mastercard does. (Obviously using my Visa card which is going to be cancelled soon isn't going to work particularly well.) Of course it could be some other problem with my Mastercard relating to the fact I'm in the middle of changing although most other stuff I've done worked fine including Paypal and Desura (I did actually have a problem buying a second copy of Windows 8) and I've used my Mastercard card once since a few of the failures.

One option that may work but is fairly risky is after Google fails the authorisation hold and puts your order on hold, you can update your details. It doesn't seem to care if you put a New Zealand billing address now. Of course when it comes around to charge it, perhaps Google will cancel the order. And there's no guarantee it will work anyway, perhaps it will still be rejected for some reason. I see no sign Google actually tried an authorisation hold again in Google Wallet (although ASB provides woefully little information on their online statement), and one time when I didn't change the billing address it didn't seem to try again after a short time (well I mean it didn't fail again).

I could call ASB and ask what's up but again it's a bit risky. Perhaps they'll fix it now somehow but if they don't do it properly it may fail again when it comes to the actual payment. So despite the small number of lost True Reward points and interest, I'm just going to get my mate to use his Visa Debit card, seems safer. In any case, I think Google has semiblacklisted my Mastercard because I was trying too many times to see if I could convince it to work.

So in conclusion if you have an ASB Mastercard credit card, you may be SOL. If you have an ASB Visa credit or debit card, you don't have to bother changing your address in ASB it seems.

Edit: Forgot to mention, one thing I tried, early on before it stopped accepting my Mastercard is to change back my details in ASB to my proper NZ one and but still use the US billing address in Google. I.E. The same thing I did for Visa and my flatmate does for his Visa Debit. This didn't work either.

Also wikipedia has an article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_Verification_System . It doesn't mention anything about NZ but interesting enough it does suggest only the numeric details are verified. Which suggests the inability to save zip code in ASB may be an issue. Which is another thing I forgot to mention, considering the timeframe involved, if I do have to change my ASB details it's going to be fairly annoying since I may not be able to use it for other things. Another strike in favour of my mates Visa debit/not having to change my address in ASB. I was actually trying to use my NZ details (except for state, country of course, fortunately if I add a zero in front of my post code which is what ASB seems to do anyway, it's a valid zipcode for Puerto Rico) as my billing address in Google with my Mastercard but it had stopped working by then.