FREE SHIPPING! Loophole?

I have tried to find a similiar situation in the forums about this, but have had no luck. If someone knows how to restrict the free shipping module to work only in that zone, regardless of billing, and if not in that zone, not allow the payment to go through.

Zen Cart 1.3.8a
Database Patch Level: 1.3.8
v1.3.8 [2008-08-17 17:53:10] (Fresh Installation)
v1.3.8 [2008-08-17 17:53:10] (Fresh Installation)

While using FREE SHIPPING! with shipping zone set to custom zone: Continental United States
and
While Payment zones set to custom zone, USA, Mexico, Canada

A customer can purchase product and ship to ANYWHERE in the world for free.

On checkout page, shipping shows:
at the top it shows an overview of shopping cart with shipping at:

Free Shipping: $0.00

below it shows:

Not Available At This Time
Sorry, we are not shipping to your region at this time.
Please contact us for alternate arrangements

But still allows payment to go through as long as their billing address is in the payment zone.

A customer can purchase product and ship to ANYWHERE in the world for free.

Are you saying you want a customer to be able to purchase from anywhere and ship free to anywhere?

No, We want customers only from USA, CA, and Mexico, with free shipping enabled for Continental USA customers on select products and we are using Numinix's Zone Rates for Canada and Mexico and products that do not qualify for free shipping. This works on items not qualified for free shipping.

The free shipping module reported:
Not Available At This Time
Sorry, we are not shipping to your region at this time.
Please contact us for alternate arrangements

but in the Cart Contents it showed:

Free Shipping: $0.00

Our site allowed the customer outside the Continental united states to complete a purchase with free shipping.

Here is an example of what i am trying to explain. A customer with a billing address in USA, CA, or MX can ship to anywhere for free.

Our website allowed the transaction to go through, even though it reports not available at this time.

pdf of checkout page

We do have a custom zen-cart template and I have not tried this on a basic version of Zen-Cart to verify.

What are you using for the Free Shipping Products? The Free Shipping freeshipper?

Always Free Shipping uses Free Shipping freeshipper but that is not a standard shipping module where you can use the zones without customizing the code ...

Always Free Shipping means everyone gets Free Shipping and setting a zone without customizing code for this will result in problems such as you are describing ...

So ... is the flag for these Free Shipping products the Always Free Shipping on the Product?

Yes, it is the Always free shipping free shipper module. I thought the module still restricted to zones, since that is an option in the module.

shipping modules

product page through catalog:

Always Free Shipping: Yes, Always Free Shipping No, Normal Shipping Rules
Special, Product/Download Combo Requires a Shipping Address

Warning: Yes makes the product - Free Shipping, Shipping Address Required
Free Shipping Module is required when all products in the order are Always Free Shipping Products

Is this not possible without modifying the code?
Why does the module ask for the shipping zone, if it does not follow the shipping zones?

Is there another way to do this?

Thank you for your help

The Free Shipping freeshipper module has all of the code built into it to make customizations easier should you need to manage this feature rather than leave you guessing on how to get that working in addition to the customization code you need ...

The Free Shipping freeshipper module is what we are using, please view the pdf above

And ... as I explained, without customization to your site, this will not work for you as the Always Free Shipping flag marks Products as Free Shipping for everyone ...

So ... yes ... you have to customize the code to try to make this work for you ...