Error: country mismatch (Northern Ireland)

I am receiving an “Error: country mismatch” message when attempting to connect my brave rewards to my verified Uphold account. My custodial account country is “GB” aka “United Kingdom”, and my Uphold address is in the United Kingdom, so I am not sure why I am receiving this error. Perhaps it is because I am based in Northern Ireland or because I am an Irish Citizen? Regardless, my verified address on Uphold is in Belfast, United Kingdom, so I don’t understand why I am getting a mismatch error. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Other details as requested:
Mac OS X - 10.14.6
Brave Version 1.48.158 Chromium: 110.0.5481.77 (Official Build) (x86_64)

No problem receiving monthly rewards since October 2021.

Not using a VPN.

I’ve successfully completed document verification via Uphold.

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Thanks for the reply, but my point was that my ID and verified address on Uphold does match my Brave rewards country. I’m guessing this might be a particular issue with Northern Ireland.

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So you did choose Ireland in the select region prompt and your ID is Irish as well?

No, I’m in Northern Ireland which is in the UK. Both my uphold account and brave rewards country are UK.

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Okay. BTW, is there an option of selecting Ireland differently?
If so, maybe shoulda done that. Lol

Just tested in a new profile on my Windows. There seems to be an option of Ireland when choosing. If you have a PC / Mac try creating a new profile and enable rewards and choose Ireland and check if it goes through. That should tell us if this is the problem or not.

That’s not an option, because my address is in the UK. The complication is likely because my ID used for uphold verification is for the island of Ireland, not just the Republic of Ireland but also Northern Ireland, the latter of which is part of the UK. Hope that makes sense! It kind of doesn’t in reality :slight_smile:

In PC, create a new profile by clicking on the Hamburger Menü
→ Create new profile → Enable rewards → Choose Ireland → try connecting Uphold. If that works, in your device or brave rewards which gives country mismatch error, you’ll have to reset Brave rewards and choose Ireland.

Thanks, I may try that, but does this mean I will lose my current Brave rewards which I’ve been accumulating since 2021? If so, I will try and resolve it on the Uphold side first, as I’m also currently in contact with their customer support.

Yes. That will erase the BATs. Did you try in a new profile?
Do not reset without testing

@PJS Actually, do a favor. Submit a Rewards Support Ticket at https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=360001302431

If you get that finished, reply here with a ticket number. Also in the meanwhile, you kind of answered already but I want to ask again to reduce any confusion.

  • What country did you choose for your Rewards country?

  • Where does the passport you submitted to Uphold say you’re from?

In the meanwhile though, I’m also going to tag @SaltyBanana to see if they can swing by to maybe offer suggestions. Also, SaltyBanana, can you answer the following:

  1. Would UK show up as GB in Rewards for country? (Internet searches show me conflicting info on whether Northern Ireland/UK is actually GB. It is used interchangeably in many places, but not all)

  2. Northern Ireland is UK. Would they need to select Ireland as country or would they need to choose UK? And if they chose UK but have Ireland passport, would it recognize that or would they be stuck with mismatch? Just curious if the API and all is good at recognizing this.

@PJS Also a heads up. If you create a new profile, you can choose any country you want with that and try to link it to Uphold. I think SmaryAadi was just suggesting you try to do a new browser profile with a different country choice, just to see if it would let you link to it. Just essentially testing how the API sees you based on the info you’ve provided. Keep in mind that your Rewards country has to match with your passport.

And yeah, you see my hesitation on how it deals with Ireland. So hoping SaltyBanana can drop by and help shed some light. If you want to try the new profile, you can do that. It won’t cause you to lose Rewards for existing. It just will create a separate new profile, leaving your old/existing one in a separate place. You’ll only lose your existing if you have to Reset your Rewards. Which, if you did choose the wrong Rewards country, then you’ll have no choice but to Reset and lose any earned BAT. But we can see what help SaltyBanana or others from Brave might be able to provide.

Hi @PJS

I am a little confused here, mind if you clarify which country you selected in the country declaration drop down?

That is a good question. I am not entirely certain but it most likely is referring to just Great Britain/England.

If they initially chose the United Kingdom in their country declaration and got a mismatch when connecting their custodian account but works fine if they select Ireland. Then that would most likely mean the UK in the drop down is only referring to the Britain/England.
These are two separate options in the country list.

@PJS I would advise you to create another Brave Profile and try to select Ireland to see if you can successfully connect. If you have, you will then need to reset your primary profile to select the correct country.
But before you do, could you take a screenshot of the BAT you have accumulated with a link to this thread and include it in your ticket submission and we can handle the rest from there.

Hi Saoiray and SaltyBanana,

You aren’t the first to be confused about ambiguities relating to Northern Ireland! To clarify, Great Britain (GB) is the name of an island not a country, which consists of England, Scotland and Wales. When GB is used to signify a country, it typically is a shorthand for ‘The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’, aka the UK.

Likewise, Ireland is the name of an island that currently includes Northern Ireland (NI) and the Republic of Ireland (ROI). People born in NI are entitled to both UK and ROI passports, thanks in part to the ‘constructive ambiguity’ enshrined in the Good Friday peace agreement.

I’ve just been in contact with Uphold support, and it seems they can’t do anything to resolve this problem, and they suggested that I try and resolve it via Brave support. When I get a moment free later this evening I will create a new Brave Profile with Ireland as the country, and try and connect it with my Uphold account. I will also raise a support ticket with the info you suggested. Hopefully this gets it sorted.

Many thanks!

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Fun part is the arguments/debates that can ensue. For example:

Great Britain is the official collective name of of England, Scotland and Wales and their associated islands . It does not include Northern Ireland and therefore should never be used interchangeably with ‘UK’ – something you see all too often.

As you mentioned, there’s the whole EU vs UK vs Ireland vs a bunch of other details that can go and confuse the heck out of people.

Yeah, and I’m wanting to say in the past that anyone who chose Ireland as their Rewards country had to have the Ireland passport. There was someone a while back who chose UK but had used their Ireland passport and ended up with the Country Mismatch error. But I never did follow through to remember the final outcome, nor to determine if any changes were made to fix that.

Just brings down the big question of what you chose compared to documents. If you chose UK and provided UK (not Ireland) passport, then you’d think it would have no issues.

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