My ID comes up as invalid as the previous owner brought lion? its now locked on a question mark folder? HELP!!

I brought a Macbook Pro a year and a half ago was pretty much brand new condition but it was secondhand.

It's been working perfectly up until recently its been really slow and freezing a bit. My real problem started when I went on update my itunes the otherday and restarted my laptop to finish installation after it froze on installation and waited for ages I figured I'd just turn it off and install it properly later. When I turned it back on it came up with the spinning wheel for about an hour I gave up and turn it on and off leaving it 10-30 minutes each time. Nothing was happening so went to utilities and repaired restarted and still no response continued to try restoring using time macbine, Pram reset, then tried to reinstall Lion but as I never brought it on my apple account it was the previous owner its says my ID is invalid for instatalarion. I tried to update to mavericks but need to install lion again to update which is impossible since I can't access it on my apple account. I was never given a disk as he brought online. Now when I turn my mac on it comes up with a folder flashing with a question mark. After the second reboot it goes to Internet recovery which takes 30+ minutes and then goes to utilities again with no avail. I would just take it to a mac store but live 5 hours drive away from the nearest store.

Is there anyway to fix this or is it going to have to be sent away or fixed instore?

From what I've seen/read online sounds like a common problem for Macbook Pro! I'm a bit disappointed that I can't contact apple without having to pay, when I just want to know if I can fix it of if I need to be sent away. I'm not sure if apple would consider fixing this for Free if it's such a common fault in Macbook pro that's if it's a simple fix, surly its a problem in the software or something? Anyway I hope someone can shed some light on all this for me

Cheers

Hils