Travel Technology - What do you think about buying apple care on ebay?

Is this legal? Are these legit?

Is this legal? Are these legit?

I can't imagine that they are. You must buy AppleCare directly from Apple. I'm not sure you can transfer it with a machine but you might be able to do. But I'd beware.

If you could find out the enrollment number, you could ring Apple and check - except that's what you're paying the money for, so the seller won't give it to you until you hand over the hard cash.

I would be very easy to either
- make up fake packs in China or
- resell an Applecare plan that has already been activated against another computer (and is thus valueless)

I definitely wouldn't buy it.

I can't imagine that they are. You must buy AppleCare directly from Apple. I'm not sure you can transfer it with a machine but you might be able to do. But I'd beware.


yes you can transfer them with a machine. But it means that the apple care is tied to that machine and it's serial number.

If it is too good to be true...

I don't think it is worth the few dollars you would likely save. If you ARE going to do it, I would make sure the person has very high feedback percentage and number, then use PayPal, etc., so that you have some protection in case it is fraudulent.

I heard on the news that up to 85% of giftcards on eBay are stolen, fake, or otherwise obtained illegitimately.

fuzz

Couple of clarifications:

You do NOT have to buy AppleCare directly from Apple. It is a retail package with a box, CD and the main important thing, the piece of paper with a code number to register along with your Mac's serial number. They can be bought from third-party Apple resellers as well as Apple directly.

If they are selling factory sealed boxes, that could be fine.

That said, for best comparison to any eBay buying, you need to check here: http://expercom.com/browse_by_category.html?CATEGORY_ID=278 ExperCom is an authroized Apple Specialist, and they carry all AppleCare items typically undercutting the suggested price significantly. For example, I bought AppleCare for a MacBook Pro for $269. The list price is $349. (That's the most extreme example because PowerBook/MacBook Pro is the most expensive plan, but others are discounted as well.) ExperCom is a fine outfit to deal with, have been buying from them for a few years with good service all around.

I'm not much of a eBay shopper at all, so you can use that to judge my opinion, but I wouldn't bother. You can check prices elsewhere as well (Small Dog also discounts AppleCare, as I recall, and I think Amazon carries it at a discount), but in my experience ExperCom has always had the lowest price. Should be low enough to avoid the hassle of eBay.

More and more Apple is moving to an auto-enroll style of AppleCare, where it is tied to the machine at the time of purchase. That said, retail packs are still made available at authorized retail stores and other places. Your guess is as good as mine if the trend for more auto-enroll will continue replacing the box version.

It sounds extremely fishy. All Apple products have basically fixed prices. If anything is sold new at a significantly reduced price, particularly if they're not an authorized retailer, it's most likely at least gray market and could be somehow fraudulent. An incremental discount could be the result of someone abusing the educational or other discount programs offered by Apple. In a case like that, an audit trail will exist, and while purchases like this might work at first the plan could be cancelled later if it's determined that it was activated outside of the Ts and Cs of the discount buying programs.

Not worth the risk IMO, and I have a pretty good vantage point upon which to base this assessment.