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What to do with a retina Macbook Pro I bought?

P

Pyrhonen

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 20, 2011
100
56
Hi! my dilemma is I bought a 15" retina Macbook Pro from Craiglist. I told the guy that was selling it that I would need to see it boot up and make sure it wasn't locked(EFI and/or ICloud), he agreed to do that. Whenever me met he said that MB Pro's battery had died, and so evidently there's was no way for me to verify if it boot up and was unlocked. I told him I couldn't buy it like that! but he said he really needed the money. So he asked me much I offered to take it like that, and he agreed for a little more of what I offered. We made a deal.

Went straight to Best Buy to buy a charger, when I got home I plugged in and turned on, it was Icloud locked. I immediately contacted the guy and asked him why was it locked and if it was stolen, he denied it was, so I asked him for the password to unlock it but he never replied back. I don't know if he locked himself in regret of selling it at such a low price or if the real owner did in case it's stolen. I had the MB unlocked and I'm able to get into OS, I just don't know if whoever the owner was(seller or someone else) is dissociated from it? I don't know what to do here.
 
Always test before you buy - nothing you can do here unfortunately. If it works, it works - just hope it's not actually stolen and registered as such with Apple.

The guy didn't own a charger? Seems stolen to me. No box, no proof of purchase can sometimes fly, but laptop only with no charger? Stolen, 99% sure.
 
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fs454 said:
Always test before you buy - nothing you can do here unfortunately. If it works, it works - just hope it's not actually stolen and registered as such with Apple.

The guy didn't own a charger? Seems stolen to me. No box, no proof of purchase can sometimes fly, but laptop only with no charger? Stolen, 99% sure.
Click to expand...

Is there a way I can find out if its reported as stolen? I wish there was a way to find out who the owner is and talk to him about the situation. I did took picture of the seller's license plate with his consent.
 
Pyrhonen said:
Is there a way I can find out if its reported as stolen? I wish there was a way to find out the owner and talk to him about the situation.
Click to expand...

Apple does not track stolen computers. You could go to the police and explain what happened and ask them to run the serial number to see if the owner reported it stolen.

You might try taking it to an Apple store and explaining what happened. They are not going to give you the owner's information I'm sure, but they might be willing to call the owner themselves to put him in touch with you. This is assuming he bought it from Apple to begin with and they have a record of it.
 
Pyrhonen said:
Hi! my dilemma is I bought a 15" retina Macbook Pro from Craiglist. I told the guy that was selling it that I would need to see it boot up and make sure it wasn't locked(EFI and/or ICloud), he agreed to do that. Whenever me met he said that MB Pro's battery had died, and so evidently there's was no way for me to verify if it boot up and was unlocked. I told him I couldn't buy it like that! but he said he really needed the money. So he asked me much I offered to take it like that, and he agreed for a little more of what I offered. We made a deal.

Went straight to Best Buy to buy a charger, when I got home I plugged in and turned on, it was Icloud locked. I immediately contacted the guy and asked him why was it locked and if it was stolen, he denied it was, so I asked him for the password to unlock it but he never replied back. I don't know if he locked himself in regret of selling it at such a low price or if the real owner did in case it's stolen. I had the MB unlocked and I'm able to get into OS, I just don't know if whoever the owner was(seller or someone else) is dissociated from it? I don't know what to do here.
Click to expand...


While I'm certain you were scammed - I think if you plug in an USB set for Sierra installation you can wipe the drive and set the MacBook as new. I don't think you can lock a Mac the same way you can lock an iOS device. Not sure.

BTW, the computer is most likely stolen.
 
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aevan said:
While I'm certain you were scammed - I think if you plug in an USB set for Sierra installation you can wipe the drive and set the MacBook as new. I don't think you can lock a Mac the same way you can lock an iOS device. Not sure.

BTW, the computer is most likely stolen.
Click to expand...

The iCloud info is stored in NVRAM, so even if you erase the drive it can still be locked remotely with Find my Mac in iCloud.

I have read you can avoid this by doing an NVRAM reset (command-option-p-r keys at startup) then installing a fresh OS and turning on iCloud Find my Mac under a new owner's account... but I have not ever tested this myself.
 
aevan said:
While I'm certain you were scammed - I think if you plug in an USB set for Sierra installation you can wipe the drive and set the MacBook as new. I don't think you can lock a Mac the same way you can lock an iOS device. Not sure.

BTW, the computer is most likely stolen.
Click to expand...

It's already set as new, I had it EFI/iCloud password reset.
 
It sounds like it was stolen but since you got it to work, I wouldn't worry about anything else.
Don't try to track down the previous owner. Apple or police don't care enough to use time and resources.
It is what it is now. Next time don't buy anything without trying.
 
There's no choice but to make a good faith effort to find the owner from whom it was stolen and return it. This is not a grey area; sorry.
 
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Heynonny said:
There's no choice but to make a good faith effort to find the owner from whom it was stolen and return it. This is not a grey area; sorry.
Click to expand...

While I agree with you, I'm not sure what the OP can do at this point to find the owner. 99.9 percent chance it was stolen, but there's no way to verify anything.
 
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