I've been an apple user for more than a decade, and I've always appreciated the fact that you can often find great deals on used macs if you're okay being a couple generations behind the newest models. I've enjoyed the fact that, when it comes to macs, so long as you do a bit of due diligence there isn't any real risk of buying used. But that is no longer the case.
I bought a used 2015 mac book pro over the weekend and it was in nearly pristine condition. It had a warranty repaired screen, and only a couple minor scuffs on the body. I did my normal checks on it... looked up the serial to see if there were any other recalls, checked the battery cycles, booted into a clean install of the OS to make sure there were no firmware passwords, verified that all the hardware matched the add, etc. etc. Everything was in order, so I paid market rate for it and went home.
Later that night when I was setting up the computer, I got a notification in the top right corner saying it was time to "enroll my computer in [company name]". I had never seen anything like it. After a bit of googling, it was clear that the computer was enrolled in some sort of DES/MDM company IT system.
I tried to reach out to the company, but they were unresponsive and no one seemed to care or know who to talk to. I called apple to check the serial and it was clean and not blacklisted/stolen. The original company is a design/media company, so the theory is that they buy/sell macs often as they upgrade, and they likely just failed to unenroll their old stock.
So now I was stuck with a laptop that appeared to have backdoor access to some company that doesn't care enough to talk to me. Moreover, every 2 hours I got an annoying pop up telling me I need to enroll. I was able to kill that popup by following some instructions online, but it was clear that there was no way to truly defeat the backdoor connection without the company specifically releasing the computer from their system (or, alternatively, if I replaced the logicboard/nic).
Luckily, the guy I bought it from was cool about it and didn't realize any of this (he bought it used too). So he gave me back my cash and I gave him back his laptop.
Overall, I guess the point of my post here is I wish I had known this before going in. At this point, I don't know how I could ever trust buying a used mac... there is apparently no way to easily verify whether or not a mac is subject to some sort of MDM/DES until you start getting notifications (or run into restrictions on the machine), which doesn't happen immediately.
I would love to be wrong about this, so if anyone has any advice on how to safely/securely/reliably buy used macs, I'm all ears. Otherwise, I will only be buying new from now on.
I bought a used 2015 mac book pro over the weekend and it was in nearly pristine condition. It had a warranty repaired screen, and only a couple minor scuffs on the body. I did my normal checks on it... looked up the serial to see if there were any other recalls, checked the battery cycles, booted into a clean install of the OS to make sure there were no firmware passwords, verified that all the hardware matched the add, etc. etc. Everything was in order, so I paid market rate for it and went home.
Later that night when I was setting up the computer, I got a notification in the top right corner saying it was time to "enroll my computer in [company name]". I had never seen anything like it. After a bit of googling, it was clear that the computer was enrolled in some sort of DES/MDM company IT system.
I tried to reach out to the company, but they were unresponsive and no one seemed to care or know who to talk to. I called apple to check the serial and it was clean and not blacklisted/stolen. The original company is a design/media company, so the theory is that they buy/sell macs often as they upgrade, and they likely just failed to unenroll their old stock.
So now I was stuck with a laptop that appeared to have backdoor access to some company that doesn't care enough to talk to me. Moreover, every 2 hours I got an annoying pop up telling me I need to enroll. I was able to kill that popup by following some instructions online, but it was clear that there was no way to truly defeat the backdoor connection without the company specifically releasing the computer from their system (or, alternatively, if I replaced the logicboard/nic).
Luckily, the guy I bought it from was cool about it and didn't realize any of this (he bought it used too). So he gave me back my cash and I gave him back his laptop.
Overall, I guess the point of my post here is I wish I had known this before going in. At this point, I don't know how I could ever trust buying a used mac... there is apparently no way to easily verify whether or not a mac is subject to some sort of MDM/DES until you start getting notifications (or run into restrictions on the machine), which doesn't happen immediately.
I would love to be wrong about this, so if anyone has any advice on how to safely/securely/reliably buy used macs, I'm all ears. Otherwise, I will only be buying new from now on.
