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Cloudane

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Aug 6, 2007
1,627
217
Sweet Apple Acres
What are people's experiences with 'cheating' the system this way by getting AppleCare for much cheaper off eBay than Apple sell it themselves?

I already went ahead and bought it, as it was at quite a bargain price of £56 (it's £140 if you buy it from Apple!). The eBay seller has 100% positive feedback, mostly from other AppleCare sales, and some pre-googling seemed to suggest that others have registered and used USA AppleCare off eBay in other countries with no problem.

When I registered the code yesterday, it went through ok but on the AppleCare registration page it said "Status: Registration in progress" and stayed like that for about 24 hours. I figured there must be human validation involved and thought "uh oh, I hope a USA code is acceptable in the UK" (especially with the lack of Value Added Tax etc). Then I noticed the iMac icon and serial number next to the AppleCare agreement ID had disappeared and it still said "in progress" so alarm bells started ringing and I phoned Apple Support.

The support guy was extremely cagey and basically told me that I shouldn't have bought AppleCare off eBay and that I need to send them proof of purchase of the AppleCare to continue the registration process. Thing is, well it's off eBay! I have the eBay and Paypal confirmations, but that's about the best I can do. I've emailed the seller asking if she can provide her proof of purchase that I can forward on to Apple, but don't hold much hope.

Anyone able to offer experienced advice? TIA...
 
Not sure if rules have changed but about a year and a half ago I bought a US eBay Applecare for my iMac G5m got the registration code and phoned up Apple UK to register it and all went through fine, no questions asked.

I have more recently about 9 months ago bought another US eBay Applecare for my current Intel iMac, registered this online and according to the Apple site I am now covered till 2010 based on the serial number.
 
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