Buying Mac on eBay and warranty, Applecare issues

[maestrokev]

eBay has a number of advertised new, sealed in box iMacs and Macbooks. I've found a number of sellers who have high feedback ratings and some who state that they are also Authorized Resellers. Any of you purchased your Mac on eBay before and then used Apple Technical Support?

My question is how does your standard 90 day telephone support/1yr warranty work? Does Apple Tech Support care you purchased on eBay and does that eBay date of purchase count towards first day of warranty. Also, can you buy AppleCare from eBay reseller and then register it towards your Mac? My concern is that if the eBay seller is not an authorized reseller or lying about it, does this affect my new product warranty? Thanks.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Personally, I wouldn't risk it.
What happens if it has 5 bad pixels on the display? You can't walk it into the eBay reseller, if you complain they will just say "Meh, call Apple" and Apple will say: send it in for warranty and wait. We won't issue a replacement on a machine, talk to your authorized reseller." You lose all of the leverage that you have dealing with a real store.

Know that Apple charges resellers about 5% lower than the Apple store price for Macs. eBay takes significant fees, add to that PayPal fees. So anyone offering a machine at more than 5% off, there has to be more to the story than that. No authorized dealer is going to sell a new model factory sealed machine at a loss, nohow. There's just too much demand for them for that to make any sense.

It could be: a Hijacked eBay account. Stolen machine. Returned machine with defects. Old model machine that they hope you don't notice its not current. Or: No machine at all and it is a flat out scam.

EBay feedback means little: a hijacked account could have 1000 positive but you're dealing with a scammer, not the account owner. Or someone can run up 100 positives by buying trading cards and eBooks for $0.99 each, then once they have established their account, swing into bigtime fraud and then disappear.

If you insist on looking at eBay, remember that there are ALWAYS scams. You have a % chance of losing everything. eBay buyer protection has too many loopholes, essentially, they only protect you from sellers who are already honest and have a track record. Look at the seller's feedback. If there is a long gap between the last feedback and the most recent, then it could be a hijacked account. Ditto if the seller's prior items have been a totally different category of goods like collectible dolls, and then all of a sudden they have a bunch of 'new factory sealed Macs'.

Run away from any seller who even hints that the machines come from outside your country. Or who spins a story about the machines coming from an Apple promotional program, or from schools or orphanages or a developing country. These are fables - Apple doesn't discount. Period. And especially not for resale.

Congratulations for reading this far. Bottom line: Go visit your local Apple dealer, and look at the Apple store online refurb prices, and choose one of those. Don't get ripped off.

 

[maestrokev]

Thanks for all the great info CanadaRAM. Your profile says you're in Victoria. Have you noticed that Best Buy and Future Shop have had $200 instant savings on the 15" MacBookPro and $100 off the 17" MBP. I think last month the iMacs were on sale. I didn't think Macs went on sale. Any other suggestions on places where I can get a good price and buy from Authorized Reseller?

 

[CanadaRAM]

Thanks for all the great info CanadaRAM. Your profile says you're in Victoria. Have you noticed that Best Buy and Future Shop have had $200 instant savings on the 15" MacBookPro and $100 off the 17" MBP. I think last month the iMacs were on sale. I didn't think Macs went on sale. Any other suggestions on places where I can get a good price and buy from Authorized Reseller?

Just watch FS and BB like a hawk - they sometimes put the price at $100 higher than retail, then have a $100 off promotion... Read all the fine print. Although SOMEtimes they have remaining old stock on a modest discount when a new model is released.

Really, you won't get any discount at all from an independent Apple reseller, you will pay the stock Apple store price. But that's not the point of a good independent reseller. They, unlike FS & BB, will have onsite techs and can fix problems for you with more speed and less restrictions than Apple can. Develop a relationship with a local store: You'll pay a bit more for the machine but will save in advice and trouble-reduction in the long term. (you really, really don't want to bring a purchase back into FS and ask them for help. It is an ugly experience, and I have done it. My experience was that if I hadn;t bought the extended FS warranty, then they didn't give a #&$# whether it was working or not after they had booked the sale)

If you are in the West, then Westworld is good, I bring a lot of business to them. Simply Computing has their fans in BC Lower Mainland. Compusmarts vary store to store and salesman to salesman.