Adding Apple care for received gift

Apple has tightened the purchasing process for Applecare considerably as there used to be quite the black market for the registration number being sold over and over again (I fell victim once). So, now the process is pretty much automated - there is no longer a box or anything else; it is registered automatically with the purchase of the device and it requires proof of purchase and the serial number of the device.

There are now these requirements:

From here:

https://www.apple.com/support/products/ipad/

And there is this:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202702

Applecare + is the only option now in the US. There are still some countries where the old Applecare is being sold, but I do not have a list. That may still come in a box at retail (or may not).

Ask the person who gave it to you for that information.

I suspect one could buy Applecare for an item even if it isn't yours. Who is going to care? I wouldn't care if somebody bought Applecare for something I own. I'm the only one who could actually use the Applecare since I own the device to which is it linked. Applecare is transferable so the actual person buying it doesn't matter. It is linked to the hardware, not the person.

The issue here is the device's purchase was not registered with Apple, probably because of the way josh came by it. Apple needs that because they will only issue Applecare within 60 days of the original sale of a device (that would presumably be to whoever presented the gift to you). By all means contact Apple but I would think if they had that on record then they wouldn't be asking you (josh) for it.

Did you read Apple's requirements on what is needed to show to Apple and how to purchase it? I did not mean to imply that your gift was stolen, but iPhones in general are on the top of the list of stolen goods, so Apple changed their policies some time ago. You can try and take yours to an Apple store and see if they will allow you to purchase it - that might be the best idea; however, it needs to be within 60 days of the date of purchase.

It is the purchase date that's important. Whether or not you open them in that time isn't important. We occasionally see people post here about wanting to get Applecare for new-in-the-box iPhones they bought from a reseller. Since it is a reseller the timer started when the reseller bought them from Apple, not when the person gets them from the reseller. Often the reseller won't have that information. So no Applecare for the iPhone.

You can call Apple, but generally, you do need to produce proof that the item is yours (too many stolen devices nowadays).

By the way, the fraud I read about was this one. The change Apple made wasn't to the Applecare issuing requirements (Applecare didn't seem to be involved) but removing serial numbers from the outside of iPhones.

Interesting story, thanks. :-)

That is not what I was referring to: you used to be able to buy Applecare in a box in several retail stores as well as ebay. The only thing you needed was a piece of paper in that box which had the registration number on it. You'd call Apple with that number to register your Applecare. Some ebay sellers would take out that paper and then sell "Applecare" - but not the box,just the registration number - they would email you the registration number after you paid for it. And, they wouldn't just do that once. Usually, it would take quite a long time before anyone would realize what was going on. They would also do that with Apple's Final Cut Express - instead of sending you the install DVD's, they would send you the registration number and tell you to download the free trial and then use the number to register the "purchase". I got scammed with the Applecare, filed complaint with ebay and blew the whistle with Apple's legal department. Did get my money back from the seller and did not register that one. About four months later, there was no Applecare available at ebay and later none in stores either. So, I assume Apple finally got rid of the opportunities for scammers to sell the same Applecare number dozens of times.