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Buying Apple Care from ebay.

Y

yegon

Cancelled
Original poster
Oct 20, 2007
3,429
2,028
Has anyone any experience of this in the UK?

Bought my MBP in Jan this year, didn't bother with Apple Care on the day - £1,712 was quite enough for one lunch time - but I fully intend to buy it before next Jan. £273 is the instore price. I've seen it go for for considerably less on ebay but am concerned about how legit it is, plus ideally I'd like to buy from a recommended seller.
 
I purchased from ebay for my 17 SR MBP... everything went fine but when they had to replace the machine they wanted to cancel AppleCare and use the money towards a new AppleCare plan. After showing my purchase information they later declared that Applecare had been invalid... i had the new machine so i kept it but they would not refund the unused portion.
 
^^^^
That's exactly what I worry about. I have to buy applecare in march '10 and am worried if I use the Ebay applecare that they wont honor it if I need it.
 
They will not validate AppleCare purchased from ebay.

"That decision is up to the AppleCare department you are working with. In the future, I recommend purchasing our products from Apple Authorized Resellers or Apple directly.
Thanks,
Ryan J
Apple
Corporate Customer Care Administration"
 
really? An Apple store associate said that you can buy AC from ebay, but to be careful from who you buy from. I just bought AC for my iPhone today and registered it, still waiting back from Apple for an email confirming.
 
HBOC said:
really? An Apple store associate said that you can buy AC from ebay, but to be careful from who you buy from. I just bought AC for my iPhone today and registered it, still waiting back from Apple for an email confirming.
Click to expand...

The registration worked fine but now that I received a replacement they need to transfer the remaining portion or refund... now they are claiming ebay was not a valid source and had they known that they would have cancelled the AppleCare policy long before they replaced it.
 
I purchased AppleCare for my MBP on eBay for USD $125. I just got my battery replaced, seems to be working fine.
 
mainomega said:
The registration worked fine but now that I received a replacement they need to transfer the remaining portion or refund... now they are claiming ebay was not a valid source and had they known that they would have cancelled the AppleCare policy long before they replaced it.
Click to expand...

That's good info, mainomega.

Perhaps a call to Apple in the UK prior to purchasing the AC from eBay would be a good idea? Ask them if it's kosher to buy it from eBay and how the transferring procedure would work.
 
mainomega said:
The registration worked fine but now that I received a replacement they need to transfer the remaining portion or refund... now they are claiming ebay was not a valid source and had they known that they would have cancelled the AppleCare policy long before they replaced it.
Click to expand...

I purchased 4 lots of Applecare from ebay, 2 for 30" displays, 1 for macbook pro and 1 for mac pro. saved a fortune.

I was told that in the UK as long as you have a validated Applecare agreement number then when you go into an Applestore they just type this into their computer, check you have Applecare and sorted.

You'd be an idiot to pay the prices direct from Apple!

Edit: I bought from a guy called Applepeels I think on a couple of them, he sent the sealed Applecare box. On the mac pro and macbook pro I bought from the US where I was emailed an Applecare number which I entered into the Apple website.
 
mainomega said:
They will not validate AppleCare purchased from ebay.

"That decision is up to the AppleCare department you are working with. In the future, I recommend purchasing our products from Apple Authorized Resellers or Apple directly.
Thanks,
Ryan J
Apple
Corporate Customer Care Administration"
Click to expand...

LOL, Really? Buy from Apple, the warranty is way over priced. I just dropped over $1200 on my 13" MBP and now If I want an apple care warranty I have to pay over $250, sorry I can;t do that. Apple should just give us 3 years out of the Box, I mean we pay enough for the systems.
 
footballforever said:
LOL, Really? Buy from Apple, the warranty is way over priced. I just dropped over $1200 on my 13" MBP and now If I want an apple care warranty I have to pay over $250, sorry I can;t do that. Apple should just give us 3 years out of the Box, I mean we pay enough for the systems.
Click to expand...

Totally agree with that, for a premium quality product, one year warranty is a joke imho
 
I bought my applecare for my macbook pro off ebay. Everything seems to be fine and I got a confirmation. Just be sure to buy from a trusted seller and check the feedback. Saved me about $100 from the Student discount
 
i went to apple, to make sure that my registration worked. I clicked on the link from the ebays' page that i bought AC from, and it says i have Applecare until 2010. Time will tell if this is actually good.
 
I guess I should elaborate. I purchased AppleCare from a "PowerSeller" on eBay for $200 for one of our 17" MBP on March 2008. I received a sealed AppleCare box and registration on the Apple website went well. About two weeks later I received the official AppleCare letter from Apple validating the coverage.

That 17" MBP had to go through 2 battery replacements, 2 screen replacements, a logic board replacement for the Ethernet port, and a logic board replacement for the nvidia 8600. The last problem we had was when the screen they replaced developed weird colors for the bottom 1/3 of the screen. At that point it was agreed they would replace it.

They send a new 17" MBP. Seeing as I had purchased it in 2008 I had plenty of AppleCare coverage left, so they said I could cancel AppleCare and use the credit towards the purchase of a new plan. I sent all my information to the department I was told to but once they saw it was purchased on eBay they said that the original AppleCare was not valid.

On one hand they serviced the original machine plenty of times with the AppleCare coverage and they ended up replacing the MBP with a new one because they couldn't fix their mistakes. So I am happy I have a new MBP that is working fine but I'm disappointed because it now means I have to shell out $349 to buy AppleCare from them directly as I have a feeling they will check the validity of the AppleCare plan if I have any issues with the new MBP. So I essentially paid $200 (ebay AppleCare) so they would correct their mistakes and replace the machine.

Having said that, I'm sure AppleCare purchased from eBay will be fine for most warranty work performed by their service centers but when it comes to "big" issues you might have some trouble.
 
I purchased mine from CEX for £120. Registered it fine online, cheers for the advice OilyW.
 
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