I’ve been a client of thesmartesthouse for years. Until a few days ago.
Visiting their site, they show me:
Access Denied
Sorry, you do not currently have the necessary permissions to access this site, or this site may not be available in your region.
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I’m not located in the US, but currently in Central America, so I crank up my trusted VPN service. Surprisingly, I’m blocked again, with different VPN. So at least their geolocation blocking service is good at it. Now they lost at least one client.
They justify with “High fraud risk”, but you don’t stop fraud by closing the fron door, you stop fraud by delegating CC processing to third parties who absorb the risk. Like PayPal, Google Pay, Amazon Pay - a ton.
It appears they just plain block all VPNs. I’m in the US (and order from Smartest House regularly) and the site works, if I connect to a VPN (using a US server), I get the same message.
We understand how frustrating it can be when an order is declined or blocked, and we definitely appreciate the feedback shared here. While this community is focused on Zooz products from Zooz, questions about purchasing through retailers such as The Smartest House do come up from time to time, so we want to provide some general context that may help explain what is happening.
For security reasons, many ecommerce platforms automatically flag or block transactions placed through masked IP addresses, proxy servers, or VPN connections. Orders submitted under these conditions statistically carry a much higher fraud risk. When fraudulent transactions are processed, retailers have no reliable way to recover the product or the funds once the shipment is delivered, which means the loss is permanent. Because of this, automated fraud prevention systems are widely used across the industry and sometimes reject legitimate orders when the connection source cannot be verified.
Some people ask why retailers do not simply require wallet based payments like Apple Pay or Google Pay to avoid these issues. In practice, most retailers cannot rely exclusively on those methods for several reasons:
• Not all customers have access to those payment systems or compatible devices
• Many business and installer purchases require traditional card processing, invoicing, or tax handling that wallet payments do not fully support
• Wallet providers still depend on the underlying card networks and fraud screening, so they do not eliminate risk entirely
• Restricting payment options would prevent a large portion of legitimate customers from completing purchases
Because of these factors, standard fraud detection tools that evaluate IP transparency, connection routing, and other signals remain necessary for most online stores.
If someone encounters an order issue, the fastest resolution is usually to place the order from a standard residential or mobile connection without a VPN or masking service enabled, or to contact the retailer’s support team directly so they can review the transaction manually.
We truly appreciate everyone in the community and understand that security measures can sometimes feel inconvenient, but they exist to protect both customers and retailers from very real fraud risks.
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