eBay purchase

[tekksan]

i ordered a 2016 MacBook Pro on eBay from a seller with score of 18000+ and a 99.9% feedback. I get the laptop and it boots up and everything looks ok but since I don’t know where it came from, I went to reinstall macOS from scratch and after the reinstall when it booted I got some weird remote management dialog box that I’ve never seen before. It had Google, LLC on it and it wanted an admin name and password.

I looked this up and see that it is some sort of Remote Device Management enrollment. My guess is this belonged to somebody who worked at google and it is still enrolled in their MDM server.

I contacted the seller (this all happened last night) but haven’t heard back and now I’m starting to worry about getting my money back. I haven’t filed a disputed yet as I wanted the seller to have a chance to reply but man, this sucks. My other laptop died and I need one for work.

Anybody have any encouraging words dealing with eBay/PayPal? My feedback score is over 800+ with 100% feedback.

 

[Juicy Box]

any encouraging words dealing with eBay/PayPal?

They tend to be bias toward buyers when it comes to disputes. Take pictures, it helps.

 

[SDColorado]

I contacted the seller (this all happened last night) but haven’t heard back and now I’m starting to worry about getting my money back. I haven’t filed a disputed yet as I wanted the seller to have a chance to reply but man, this sucks. My other laptop died and I need one for work.

Let us know how it works out. Since “last night” is not a lot of time, especially if there are time differences and some people do like sleep

Hopefully the seller will get back to you today and you will be able to get the matter resolved to your satisfaction

 

[Fishrrman]

Sounds like it could be stolen to me.

I'd try to cancel the sale via ebay, get your money back, and try to return it.

 

[Thysanoptera]

19k sellers are usually bulk recyclers, most likely it was retired from Google and bought by the seller, I don’t think it is stolen. OP - how did you reinstall the system? From external source, like usb stick? It looks like you used existing recovery system image which was in some way custom made by google IT (no idea how) and they forgot to wipe that out. Boot from USB stick, erase the whole disk in the process.

 

[AJAAY]

The sellers feedback leads me to believe they’ll make it right. Just give them a chance too.

I’m curious, did you go into disk utility from safe start up mode and delete the hard drive? Then try to reinstall that way?

 

[tekksan]

19k sellers are usually bulk recyclers, most likely it was retired from Google and bought by the seller, I don’t think it is stolen. OP - how did you reinstall the system? From external source, like usb stick? It looks like you used existing recovery system image which was in some way custom made by google IT (no idea how) and they forgot to wipe that out. Boot from USB stick, erase the whole disk in the process.

Isn’t the device management stuff in someplace else other than the disk?
[doublepost=1539878493][/doublepost]

Isn’t the device management stuff in someplace else other than the disk?

Oh and I did try a USB disk with the same result.

 

[Thysanoptera]

Isn’t the device management stuff in someplace else other than the disk?
[doublepost=1539878493][/doublepost]
Oh and I did try a USB disk with the same result.

Dang it, disk utility doesn’t erase the recovery partition, you can see it if you type “diskutil list” in terminal. I’m surprised it’s not overwritten when installing from usb stick.

It can be still removed using some third party tools, or by enabling debug mode in diskutil, but I’m not sure if it won’t mess up the machine. I’ve been installing MacOS on completely blank drives in MBA without problem, but as far as I remember some people were bricking their 2018 MBP when installing system from scratch - although that may be due to T2.

I would contact the seller, told him I will try to wipe the drive completely clean and if that bricks the machine he’s getting it back.

 

[simonsi]

AFAIK MDM cannot be defeated by a simple blank disk install.

Return, the seller needs to sort the machine and its removal from Google assets - it may be a mistake, it may indeed be stolen, you can't tell.

 

[Thysanoptera]

AFAIK MDM cannot be defeated by a simple blank disk install.

Return, the seller needs to sort the machine and its removal from Google assets - it may be a mistake, it may indeed be stolen, you can't tell.

MDM by itself can, DEP can’t. If the machine is enrolled in DEP it will download the MDM profile which was associated with it the moment it is connected to the net. You could mess around with changing serial number but if the seller is legit and bought it in bulk from google they should be able to reach out to them and remove the device.

 

[seeforyourself]

i ordered a 2016 MacBook Pro on eBay from a seller with score of 18000+ and a 99.9% feedback. I get the laptop and it boots up and everything looks ok but since I don’t know where it came from, I went to reinstall macOS from scratch and after the reinstall when it booted I got some weird remote management dialog box that I’ve never seen before. It had Google, LLC on it and it wanted an admin name and password.

I looked this up and see that it is some sort of Remote Device Management enrollment. My guess is this belonged to somebody who worked at google and it is still enrolled in their MDM server.

I contacted the seller (this all happened last night) but haven’t heard back and now I’m starting to worry about getting my money back. I haven’t filed a disputed yet as I wanted the seller to have a chance to reply but man, this sucks. My other laptop died and I need one for work.

Anybody have any encouraging words dealing with eBay/PayPal? My feedback score is over 800+ with 100% feedback.

There's buyer protection through eBay. They will definitely side with you on this case. You will most likely give the product back and get your full refund.

 

[tekksan]

Just an update. I worked with the seller’s tech and could not get the DEP/MDM removed. They buy in bulk from the big tech companies in the Bay Area. Anyway, the seller let me send it back so hopefully I get my money back soon. I went ahead and spent an extra $300 and bought a new one that is a 2017 on B&H.

 

[seeforyourself]

Just an update. I worked with the seller’s tech and could not get the DEP/MDM removed. They buy in bulk from the big tech companies in the Bay Area. Anyway, the seller let me send it back so hopefully I get my money back soon. I went ahead and spent an extra $300 and bought a new one that is a 2017 on B&H.

You will. Make sure you provide the tracking number in eBay messages.