AppleCare and selling your old Mac on eBay

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Level 1

24 points

AppleCare and selling your old Mac on eBay

Some of us know how valuable AppleCare is. Many people don't.

Buyers on eBay (or wherever) generally don't value AppleCare anywhere near what it's worth, if they value it at all.

If you advertise and sell your Mac as covered by AppleCare, you are throwing money away.

However, in case anything goes wrong with the Mac after you sell it, you don't want any bad karma. So, you want the buyer to have access to AppleCare, but not on your nickel. If they don't want to pay for AppleCare, they're on their own.

As a seller here is how to get full value for the AppleCare you purchased. For this to work, you had better buy your AppleCare contract directly from Apple!

If you're selling within 1 year of original purchase:

1. Advertise that the Mac is eligible for AppleCare.

2. After it sells, instruct Apple to remove AppleCare from the Mac, and get the refund of the pro-rated remaining value of the contract.

3. The new owner can buy AppleCare within 1 year from the original purchase date.

If you're selling after 1 year from original purchase:

1. Advertise that the Mac comes with a 30 day option to take over the AppleCare contract for the remaining pro-rated value of the contract.

2. If the buyer opts to take over the AppleCare agreement within the 30 days,

a. they PayPal you the money, and all is good. You or they contact Apple and inform them of the new owner.

b. you instruct Apple to remove AppleCare from the Mac and get the refund of the pro-rated remaining value of the contract.

I have double-checked the facts with Apple support. I hope the facts don't change.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on Jun 16, 2011 6:12 PM

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Answer 1

daveyostcom Author

Level 1

24 points

Jun 29, 2011 1:34 PM in response to daveyostcom

Above I said, "you had better buy your AppleCare contract directly from Apple."

I just spoke with an Apple support person. He said that to get a pro-rated refund or to transfer an agreement, you must show "proof of purchase", in other words, a receipt. It's easiest if you buy it from Apple because they can easily find a copy of the receipt in their records. But it is also OK to buy the AppleCare from some other source as long as you keep the receipt, so you can fax it to them or send them an image of it. For example, they accepted a screen shot of the Amazon invoice for an AppleCare agreement I bought.

He did caution that if you buy an AppleCare agreement second-hand (for example, on eBay) the receipt for that transaction (for example, a PayPal receipt) is not acceptable as proof of purchase. You will have to have the original receipt for the original purchase of the AppleCare contract, and that has to be from "an authorized reseller". Amazon is an authorized reseller, for example.

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Answer 2

daveyostcom Author

Level 1

24 points

Oct 27, 2012 3:53 PM in response to daveyostcom

List an eBay Buy Now item for the remainder of your AppleCare agreement. The buyer of your Mac can simply also buy the remainder of your AppleCare coverage on eBay. If they don't buy the coverage within 30 days, you call Apple and get your pro-rated refund for the remainder of the coverage. This way of doing it is OK with eBay's rules about side transactions.

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Answer 3

Oct 27, 2012 4:54 PM in response to daveyostcom

Interesting.

I guess it depends where you are in your AppleCare agreement; for example I am on Year 2 out of Year 3, it expires in June. I really wouldn't have a problem just transferring the ownership of AppleCare to the customer. No extra money involved, and it just takes a few documents sent to Apple to verify this. Or, you can do nothing and still retain the AppleCare in your name. Makes a good selling point though, if the customer gets an Extended Warranty for free.

I also don't know if an individual can legally sell AppleCare...but that's another discussion.

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