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Buying a WWDC ticket in Mexico is an ordeal
Once again I am having trouble to register for WWDC. Last year my problem was that I couldn’t buy the ticket through the online Apple Store because there simply was no Mexican Apple Store. In the end I could solve the problem by using a mail forwarding address that I have in the US. This year I expected to be able to register quickly since Apple finally opened their online store south of the border. Well, it seems that I was overly optimistic. Everything went fine until I actually paid for the e-ticket. As you can see, the estimated total cost was 13,999 pesos, which is a fair price based on the current exchange rate. Note that there are no taxes (IVA) which makes sense since this is an event that takes place in the US.
Since I did not receive an e-mail confirmation, I decided to check the status of my order. I was shocked to see that the amount of my order was now MXP16,098.85 or MXP2,099.85 more than I expected to pay. The difference is caused by a 15% tax. This has to be a mistake because the Mexican government does not collect taxes on services provided in another country. Otherwise, I would also have to pay taxes in Mexico when booking a hotel room in the US which is simply ridiculous.
I obviously called the Apple Store to solve the problem. As expected nobody had complained about that problem before and the person who tried to help me didn’t understand the problem immediately. It took me a while to explain why this product shouldn’t cause taxes but once he saw the discrepancy he asked me to hold while he asked his supervisor for help. After a couple of minutes he told me that his supervisor was not available and that he would call me back. He hasn’t. Since using a mail forwarding address doesn’t work anymore, I will have to call him back tomorrow to try to solve the problem. Frankly, I am not happy about this situation.
I already knew that Apple is definitively not a global company. They focus mainly on the US and a couple of major markets in Europe and Asia. They seem to be unable or unwilling to grow elsewhere. Just look at the iPhone fiasco. It has almost been a year since the product was launched in the US and it is only available in five additional countries. If you happen to live outside of one of the chosen countries you are out of luck. Developers in Brazil, Russia, India and China are left in the cold. It doesn’t matter that their economies are growing fast, Steve doesn’t care. You may think that there aren’t many Mac or iPhone developers in those countries, and who knows, you may be right. I still believe that nobody should be excluded. After all, popular Mac software like The Print Shop or Kid Pix Deluxe are developed by Software MacKiev, a company based in Ukraine, a country which, unsurprisingly, has no Apple Store.