I'm trying to buy a North Star RC seaplane kit from Balsa USA, but my cards keep being declined. I've tried both, and they've had enough funds in them to buy it... but every time, I get a message saying the billing address is wrong.

I was considering sending photos of my card and a bank statement as proof of my home address, but I realised that even then they wouldn't be able to do anything because the problem is on Santander and Nationwide's end.

I have never had this problem before - the Balsa USA site is the only place. I've been quite active on eBay recently and nothing came up then.

I plan on calling my bank tomorrow, but any other advice would be appreciated. Have you had trouble buying things for this reason? If so, were you able to resolve it, and how?

SMEG !

Have you tried talking to a local hobby shop to see what they could get it for? Our local shop will sell them at the same price as Balsa USA. I am significantly closer to the manufacturer though..

I would consider some light ply in the bottom of the plane and glassing the hull lightly as well. Its not very hard to knock the bottom in on one of these. Or so the local rc seaplane pilot tells me.

The local hobby shop closed down recently. In any case, it's unlikely they would have stocked it. I live in the UK, not the US.

There may be some sort of US-UK problem (or US-EU) going on. My wife had a perfectly good credit card rejected by a UK company the other day, although we had used the card in the UK a couple of weeks ago and it worked fine there and it works here, too. She tried again the next day, and it went through.

That's what I'd assumed, though it hasn't fixed itself in the several repeated times I tried to pay for it across several days.

BUSA can be reached by phone so it may be worth the call to ask them directly. I have had a card that is only used for on line ordering rejected but it turned out to be a problem with the bank not posting the payments made on the card correctly. A wrong address?? That's a new one on me but things happen.