Hi Mac rumor friends, I have an update after 5 senior advisor genius contacts, and before that 10 geniuses.
Some things have been discovered by the Apple store in Amsterdam. After 10 weeks there was finally a senior advisor genius from Apple who really helped and used her brains.
First I was sent to Amac Groningen to have a firmware revival of the logic board.
That was the advice of a Apple Senior Advisor, so I brought my MBP 16 late 2019 to this store in Groningen.
A firmware revival would be done by them, so I paid 59 euros.
But it was not done properly.
The manager, his first name starts with a B, is an extremely unsympathetic young man with an unfriendly and unhelpful attitude.
According to him, Amac had nothing to do with Apple. Such a strange statement when it is posted everywhere in the store that they are an Apple Premium Seller Reseller Repair shop. That aside.
When I spoke to Apple support, the manager Bjorn did not want to come to the phone.
I told him that Apple did not have an activation lock on my MBP late 2019 i9 2.4GHz 32GB RAM 2TB SSD Radeon Pro 5500m 8Gb, but that it appeared afetr a reset.
Apparently this was not believed by this Bjorn.
I had the Japanese receipt from the Apple Store Tokyo Japan with me, which is Japanese, but because my name was not on it in English/Dutch, he refused to take in my MacBook Pro.
I also had the insurance papers with me.
The fact that there was no activation lock at Apple was confirmed by Apple's Senior Advisor Nadia.
This Bjorn could have checked that very easily via the computer, I understood from Nadia.
The firmware revival was not done well, or perhaps not at all, who knows, but still I had to pay.
Amac says that they have done it twice, but later in the conversation it turned out that they have only done a firmware revival once.
So I went home with a macbook pro that was not revived.
So I had to phone again with Apple.
The senior advisor made an appointment with the Apple store in Amsterdam on 7 december 2023.
So we went there, me and and my girl Rose.
This is what they found out at the Apple store in Amsterdam by Dimitri the technical professional, he iss great.
After diving into Apple's database he found out the following.
A repair has been carried out 3 times under Apple care warranty, by the premium reseller seller repair service in Tallinn Estonia, to be specific in May 2020, September 2020, October 2020. The screen has been replaced, the logic board, and the WiFi.
The logic board had been replaced, but not with a new one, but with a refurbished one on my MacBook Pro 16"i9 2.4Ghz 32 GB RAM 2TB SSD Radeon Pro 5500m 8GB. My MBP that was still under Apple care from 20-1-2020.
Because of the refurbished logic board we got an activation lock from another Apple ID because that was still in the T2 chip of the refurbished logic board, this happened after my total reset of Ventura 13.5.2.
It now appears that the repairs under warranty were done fraudulently by the Apple reseller in Estonia. It was carried out by the only reseller store in Estonia.
The repairs were listed in the Apple store system, but, nothing had been tested after replacement and repair as it should have been done following Apple rules, and also the protocol as laid out by Apple had not been followed as Apple requires! It was under Apple care in the first year of purchase.
The Apple store in Amsterdam have now taken in my Mac Book Pro for repairs because I had the proof of purchase.
Everything appears to be wrong in the Macbook, in fact the repairs carried out have been a complete scam while there was still Apple Care on the Mac Book Pro.
The battery needs to be replaced after 348 cycles, because the capacity is below 80%, a value that should be reached after 1000 to 1200 cycles according to Apple. Maybe it is not working well with the refurbished logic board, I don't know.
The reseller deliberately installed a refurbished logic board as new, this would never have come to light if I had not done the complete reset, hence the different Apple ID.
I have the emails from the shop, from a guy Keijo Treima Apple certified MacIntosh Technician who works there, who mentions he has replaced the logic board but didn't say it was refurbished one.
Back to the Apple store in Amsterdam!
We told the Apple store in Amsterdam that a Senior Advisor from Apple offered us a credit voucher when we spoke on the phone because it took so long before anything was done about my problem, but in the Apple store they said that that was complete nonsense, just like the other Senior Advisor who said that Apple would collect the MBP from my home.
All in all, we are really not happy with how everything went and was "arranged".
And that our trust in an official Apple reseller seller repair services has reached the bottom line, for the shop in Tallinn Estonia, and also the Amac store in Groningen, they cheat their customers!
My advice is, let them show you the tests they performed on your Apple product, let them show you proof they performed repairs according to Apple rules, and that they replace parts with new parts and not refurbished ones when it is still under Apple care. Make screenshots with your phone!
