Don't buy AppleCare on Ebay

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I have bought two Apple Care warrenties from memorymate. My MacPro one-year warrenty ran out in February and according to Apple support site it is still registered for another 2 years. So no problems so far

After reading this thread I have now looked at the

"AppleCare Protection Plan Certificate"

it states

"Please keep this certificate and the original proof of purchase for your Apple products and the Agreement as they may be required if there is any question as to the product's eligibility for service under the Agreement. "

Therefore Memorymate by not supplying the original box and receipt, leaves the buyer open to NOT getting the Apple Care he/she promises should the buyer need it.

I hope nothing goes wrong with my Mac products. However I would never buy anything from memorymate or sellers like him ever again.

I have read on this thread of at least one person getting the support and repairs from Apple for their machine after buying from memorymate. It would be good to hear from anyone else.

Memorymate sure is selling a lot of Apple Care warrenties on eBay. If it is a scam, somebody should do something about it.
 
I also bought an AppleCare for my MBP from some member whose name I forgot through eBay back in December, so I've just checked my status, and fortunately everything is fine!!

I really hope it will remain that way till the expiration date, which is end of 2011!
 
Looks like this seller could be carrying out the same procedure -

macman812 - one of the feedbacks -


View attachment 171850

The beauty of this scheme is that when a customer buys the code and receives it - he promptly leaves positive feedback as his/her product is registered. After a few months they don't have the ability to get a refund or change their feedback.
 
Music_Producer said:
Looks like this seller could be carrying out the same procedure -

macman812 - one of the feedbacks -


View attachment 171850

The beauty of this scheme is that when a customer buys the code and receives it - he promptly leaves positive feedback as his/her product is registered. After a few months they don't have the ability to get a refund or change their feedback.
Click to expand...

That was my seller . . . $134 each for the 2 laptop AppleCares. Registered on Jan 22 2009. Everything still seems OK.
 
Whackintosh said:
Would it be possible to start a list of Ebay apple care sellers that can be trusted?
Click to expand...

How does that help? Memorymate has 10,000+ positive feedback, so looking that he/she can be regarded as a trustworthy seller until this story came up. Same goes for any other seller.

I would buy a retail box over a code emailed to me any day, and heck.. why gamble in the first place? Ebay's great for hardware purchases, but virtual stuff - I stay away. Sure there are good sellers but they're pretty rare and then in those cases the savings aren't exactly substantial.
 
I just bought applecare off ebay last week. Seller emailed me the code. Everything worked fine. Sorry about your luck.
 
Music_Producer said:
What do you not understand about this thread? The codes work fine, it's only after a few months that your warranty is cancelled and you don't have the ability to get a refund. Read before thinking you're so lucky. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

of course he might actually be lucky....we haven't any idea how many of the fakes Apple spots. For all we know, lots of people may actually be getting warranty repairs done using these fake codes without Apple ever knowing they've been scammed.

But you're right to warn this guy. Just because registration seems to have gone smoothly, that doesn't mean that later on he wont be asked to prove his purchase or have his applecare cancelled if he can't.
 
Add cambridgededicatedservices to the trustworthy list. I received the original box and had no problems whatsoever when I ordered from them almost 2 years ago. I'm not sure how often they sell AppleCare on eBay.
 
Disputed my purchase from memorymate via PayPal. Memorymate did not respond and PayPal found in my favour, and I got a full refund :)
 
Pfft...

I just put down the receiver from my last call to PayPal and I am still shaking with rage:

They plainly refused to listen to me. They would not connect me to somebody in charge. They would not let me file a complaint. They would not call me back.
The guy on the other end was stuck in a loop telling me their terms of business over and over again.

When asked, what they intend to do, in order to stop the seller from offering their fake products, he weaseled out, that 'if enough people complain' they will freeze his PayPal account...

What is going on there?

Be careful in where and what you buy!
 
I bought my SR macbook pro apple care from TheCheetahExpress, just got a code, no box, BUT I have had no issues whatsoever with it. Apple has honored it quite well (even so far as replacing my mbp with a new unibody last week... so they are legit and trustworthy, but no box, just the digital code
 
galstaph said:
I bought my SR macbook pro apple care from TheCheetahExpress, just got a code, no box, BUT I have had no issues whatsoever with it. Apple has honored it quite well (even so far as replacing my mbp with a new unibody last week... so they are legit and trustworthy, but no box, just the digital code
Click to expand...

I do not want to imply that your code might be illegit, but I think there are different departments within Apple and that they not necessarily know what the other is doing.

I just looked at my AppleCare-Status, which should by now all but revoked.

However it looks as healthy as before and is displayed as valid till 2011. So I guess that if I would walk up to the genius bar they would happily fix my computer based on this information...

So it seems that at the moment this scam mainly hurts Apple (doing unpaid repairs) and a few unlucky people that somehow failed to sail through unnoticed...
 
Macman 812 response

Aboo said:
How's this for starters. DON'T BUY APPLE CARE FROM:

memorymate
macman812
tyyy69
agronve1
Click to expand...


Hi

I am new to this forum or any forum for that matter and as you can see by name on here, I am macman812 from ebay. I do sell apple products, one of which is applecare warranties, I sell boxed units and codes, but mostly the codes because of the savings for my customers. I have been buying from the same source for over 4 years, and have had very few problems (less 10 out of 4000 sold) and these problems were easily resolved for my customer by myself or by Apple. All except one and for that one, I was never given an opportunity. That being said, I did refund his money and still offered to resolve the issue but my emails went unanswered.

I feel it is very unfair to put me on a "do not buy from list" because I had one bad feedback out of thousands of feedbacks, in 4 years of selling applecare this way. You all must understand that there is always someone that either will not give you the opportunity to correct a problem, or someone who just can't be satisfied, no matter how much you try and for me to have only one negative out of thousands, you have to agree that I am doing something right and I do my best to fix any issues. It is not uncommon for me to get on the phone a few times a week to help someone along with the enrollment of a code if they are having difficulty figuring it out. My feedback goes back for years, not months and there is no pattern of bad feedback.

I am not disappearing, Please email anyone that has bought from me and they will tell you all questions, concerns, issues etc... are resolved right away and I always follow up. I am a one man show so I know all that goes on and I take a lot of pride in what I do.

Sorry to run off at the mouth here, but I just need people to realize that not everyone falls under the same category just because they sell a similar product.

By the way, as a huge ebayer, both buying and selling, I also agree that any purchase large or small, should be purchased with a credit card either directly or through paypal. There are often times that paypal can't help you, but your credit card always will, regardless of what country your in. Please realize though that a dispute needs to be filed within a specific amount of time, each credit card company differs in the amount of time you have to dispute a charge, so its a good idea to check with your credit card company before using the card.

I hope this all helps
 
zer0tails said:
I purchased from the same seller in December apple care for my cinema display. just checked on apple support and it's still valid. I recommend a guy called macman1812 or something like that. Purchased apple care for my macbook pro last night and it registered straight away whereas mostly it takes a few days for registration to go through.
Click to expand...

I've purchased from macman812 myself and highly recommend him. Best AppleCare prices on Ebay and he communicates well.

I had a small surprise when I tried to register by web and it failed. I emailed macman812, he responded immediately and apologized saying if he had noticed I was in North Carolina he would have told me that residents of North Carolina MUST register AppleCare by phone.

I called Apple, registered by phone and got confirmation on the spot that my license was vaild.


Aboo said:
How's this for starters. DON'T BUY APPLE CARE FROM:

memorymate
macman812
tyyy69
agronve1
Click to expand...

From my experience macman812 should not be on your list. Read above.
 
I'm a Apple reseller and I know other resellers too. This is for macman - I am interested in knowing how you source the codes.. because no legitimate reseller obtains 'codes only'. We all buy retail packaging.

Of course you could be buying codes from another reseller in which case I would caution you to be careful. You could simply be opening up retail packages and selling the codes online - which is fine, (because it saves on shipping for customers) but there's no stopping you from asking for a refund further down the road.

Just a point that everyone should think about before they jump in and buy 'codes only'.
 
Music_Producer said:
I'm a Apple reseller and I know other resellers too. This is for macman - I am interested in knowing how you source the codes.. because no legitimate reseller obtains 'codes only'. We all buy retail packaging.

Of course you could be buying codes from another reseller in which case I would caution you to be careful. You could simply be opening up retail packages and selling the codes online - which is fine, (because it saves on shipping for customers) but there's no stopping you from asking for a refund further down the road.

Just a point that everyone should think about before they jump in and buy 'codes only'.
Click to expand...

I don't disagree that you do need to be careful buying codes only, there is obviously something going on with some of the codes being sold on ebay, but the fact that I have sold applecares for almost 4 years and all have come from the same supplier, with almost no problems at all, eases my mind and my customers should feel comfortable buying from me.

Just to be clear, the few problems I have had, have been my own fault. I have sent out codes that come back as used because I accidentally sent the same code to more then one customer. I am always very fast in getting my customer a new code and ALL have worked perfectly.

As far as me asking for a refund down the road from apple, that is just ridiculous to me. I have a very successful on line business and a family that it supports. I am not about to risk everything. I guess someone can try to return an applecare or 2 to apple, but to return 4000 applecares would more then likely raise some red flags and to be quite honest, I think apples policy would be to check and see if a code is used before just dishing out a refund.

All this being said, there are obviously people having trouble out there with codes and very possibly a big part of the issue is that the seller is either disappearing or not responding to emails when many of these issues can be fixed pretty easily. Another big issue in my opinion is that apple approves the bad or used codes and sends out Applecare verification emails and sometimes letters via mail. If a code is enrolled with apple, it should show up as enrolled with apple and 99.9% of the time it does. If a code is already enrolled, the response at the enrollment screen on apples web site is

"We're sorry, but this AppleCare agreement has already been registered. Please check your information and try again, or contact us."

It seems a big problem here is on Apples side that these codes that people are having problems with are not coming up with that response from Apple.

Again, sorry to run off at the mouth again, just trying to get my thoughts and experiences out there.
 
Umm..changing the title thread to include "without the box" seems appropriate.

The best advice is to "use your head, when buying on eBay" and remember that feedback is there for a reason...
 
Detektiv-Pinky said:
I do not want to imply that your code might be illegit, but I think there are different departments within Apple and that they not necessarily know what the other is doing.

I just looked at my AppleCare-Status, which should by now all but revoked.

However it looks as healthy as before and is displayed as valid till 2011. So I guess that if I would walk up to the genius bar they would happily fix my computer based on this information...

So it seems that at the moment this scam mainly hurts Apple (doing unpaid repairs) and a few unlucky people that somehow failed to sail through unnoticed...
Click to expand...

My code was legit, but as apple just replaced my computer... I looked into getting a prorated return of the 14 month balance of my apple care and it was a no go, I could transfer it to the new machine but, it would add 14 months from today... meaning 2 months of applecare after the year, apple will not refund on ebay sales, no if ands or buts, crap I know just suck it up and get another one. At least I got my $200 out of it :D (new $3000 laptop [17" unibody to replace my santa rosa 17], 2 topcases, a battery and a logic board) so I think I'll just spend the extra 80 bucks over ebay applecare and get the edu applecare for my new unibody
 
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