Been going in circles for a while with this one.. LiNE only allows one to scan QR codes to join a group if you’ve validated your age. You can only validate your age if you have a mobile provider that offers the service. My mobile provider is Sakura (running on NTT) which doesn’t offer a service.
You can get round individual hurdles by finding someone who can be friends with then invite, but I keep coming up against the problem / hurdle.
I’ve asked a Japanese friend who says there’s no other way.. but I thought I’d ask here.
10 comments
Is there any reason a resident of Japan would use a foreigner/tourist-oriented mobile service provider?
The only answer (which I’m sure you’re already aware of) is switch to a MVNO which allows line age verification. IIJMio is one such provider, but there are others.
Why don’t you switch to a normal mobile service? There’s no need to keep using a service for tourists.
This policy has been in place for at least half a decade now, probably longer. There’s no way around it. Line is ever a pain in the dick.
That’s exactly why I stopped using Line.
It feels like the whole app has been designed by 65 years old salarymen. It’s so user hostile and there are such better alternatives, I don’t understand why Line is even still a thing.
I used to have this problem but finally managed to verify my account after switching to a Rakuten Mobile SIM card. Now, it’s also possible with other SIM cards, like mineo and IIJmio. Unfortunately, Sakura Mobile is not one of them.
In the past, I tried signing up for a Docomo account on their website. Although I found that age verification doesn’t work for accounts that aren’t registered without a phone contract. Not sure if it would work for you but you could try registering a LINE Pay account, then connecting that to your LINE account.
Just send people url link. If you go to invite friends and email and pick a random person the email will pop up with a url link. Copy and close out the fake email and send to people you want add
Close line, remove your sim card get be on wifi only, launch line and you should be able to do things that are age locked unless they patched it recently.
I could do it but don’t know if it still works. I linked my line account to my iPad and I could add another person there
I had that problem with AU for a long time and when
I switched to Rakuten it worked!
If you use line via the American app (or maybe whatever country is your native equivalent) you can bypass a lot of the things, I think. I use the Japanese version now for other reasons, but the rules/customs are different depending on the region, I think. Basically I used the American version of LINE when coming to Japan and the better part of 3 years and never had that issue. To download the US version of LINE, you need a US based iCloud account (for apple) and download from the us Apple App Store, directly. You can use the same account for your Japanese version of Line in the American version of Line. Note that you do risk losing your data if you cannot end up transferring properly (like if you forgot your password or something), so please do this at your own risk, and also backup your messages in your settings before attempting.