Stern as in a ship, or as in Howdy Doody? :-)

Definitely nothing puppet-related. That thing looks a bit creepy, quite frankly.

Pisser, to quote Wm. Shakespeare.
You see, it works ;-)

Don't give up. Do what I do when Atlas bear tries to break GOG during Insomnia sales - keep refreshing and brute force what you want through the system until it's yours. =)
Associating you with extreme sternness is like associating the Lost Vikings with a gory horror title.
Just doesn't work. -laughs-

I don't think this is a GOG issue. More likely something from my credit card service.

Now I'm thinking of an awesome kink hardware device to make.

One of my cards used to limit foreign transactions. I called them and had them take that off, took about 5 minutes on the phone. ;)

I think a webcam lady has done so. She does shows where she has sex with a puppet.
Can't remember the name offhand, but I'll pass it along if my brain starts working properly.

I was thinking giant rig where someone can move a person via pullies and reduction ratios like a giant marionette.

Hmm. Sounds like a hell of a lot of work, but kudos to you on a sheer creativity level. =)

Got to love the diversity of this thread. Seriously. I mean it.

Ugh...such a pain in the ass.

Had credit card people try to shut me down during a big sale. Ended up on the phone explaining the situation and plugging GOG.com to them before the call ended. -laughs-

My card has a similar security system which requires me to call my customer service to unlock and authorize international purchases.
Yesterday I managed to buy a few games. However today my checkouts were denied so I called my service to unlock the card.
Now it seems due to these few failed attempts of purchase my card is blocked for 24 hours.

I agree. I love any place where people can talk about anything, so long as they aren't being shitty to others while doing so.