Well, particly.

I basicly have a life in the States and in my homecountry - The Netherlands. Half of my family lives in the states, the other half in the Netherlands. I speak fluidly English, aswell can I speak Dutch without a single hitch. I've got an American Express registered on my American adress, and I've got an MasterCard registered on my home adress in the Netherlands.

My parents did it, and I took that similiar idea over in my life. For a few reasons like, I can easily get cheaper things from Europe rather than from here. A brand new 29" Phillips widescreen of 499€ versus the 600$ price overhere. Other reasons for the sake of when you're in the US, you don't have to keep on changing your money for those Euros they use overthere. So, you just yank out a creditcard that's usable in the European countries and leave the other one at home. I go back to my country for atleast 2 months a year.

But there's downsides to it. For instance, they use your location of payment as your "Location" for some things. I started my Gold Subscription with my European creditcard. That gave me the European Xbox LIVE dashboard update. That gave me the European advertisements. That killed my previleges as an American on Xbox LIVE. And worst of all, it refers to me as "The United Kingom Player". I've got nothing against the UK or something, it's just the fact that I get horrible lag as it ALSO MATCHES ME UP WITH THEM.

And on the other side of that coin, my IP is located in New York. Yet my connection to players from Conneticut or even from New York itself seems to be lesser than those from the UK/shoreline EU countries. But like I said, while playing with those players, my connection gets even worse.

Changing payments was the easy way out. Ofcourse, I'm not the average dumbass with a double-nationality. They've tagged me off as an "fraud". I used, like I said my Mastercard for my payment. And signed up with my US adress. Meaning they're in two different continents, different payments, different valuta, different all different. So, to bite the "fraud" back in the ass - They've stolen my abilities to buy MS Points, use MS Points, redeem MS Points and finally - I can't decline, accept or extend memberships. I've got an "infinite" Xbox LIVE Gold to say the least...

So, the strangest thing that came to me. And probally to you to now after this quite confusing story... I'm a born Dutchman, currently in the US - How am I an player from the United Kingdom then? Well, the hell should I know!? That's the point of this story.

According to Xbox LIVE, I should be playing from the UK grounds. While I'm in the US. Paying with a Dutch creditcard(The payments are always in Dutch language). And also according to them, I'm avoiding payment. While, I recieve my monthly bills from Xbox LIVE just fine. And they've all been paid correctly too. Is it an conspiract afterall? Trying to frame me, the Microsoft way? Slightly idiotic, with a hunch of jack-lé-ass? I don't know, but while my services are just crap, my so called "privileges" on Xbox LIVE been disables and my creditcard bills transferred and transactioned without any problems... There shouldn't be anything to it, right?

How strange. All of this just popped into me as I overlooked my '07 spendages.