Apple's 3rd party trade in company "Phobio" has tried to screw me over at least 3 times in the last 10 years. I now will only bring it in to Apple Store for trade ins. Yes, it's a 2 hour round trip for me, but worth it to escape the hassle of calling your mint iPhone, MacBook, iMac, as "defective"
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Apple Trade-in Program for MacBook Pros
- Thread starter smirking
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Can you clarify the last part (at any time)? Do you mean trade in without a purchase?
I am thinking of ordering online, add an old device as trade in, and have the new machine shipped to me. Then instead of using their mail in trade in kit, I am thinking of bringing the old device to an Apple Store instead. Would I get the trade in value in gift cards in this case?
No. If you are placing the order online, you have to complete the trade-in through that online/mail-in process in order to have the trade in credit applied towards the actual purchase/refunded to the original form of payment.
However, you could do the in-store trade in first, then apply that gift card towards the online purchase.
Maybe this varies by location, but I’ve done a few trade-ins in the US that I initiated online during a purchase, and then completed my trade in in-store.
I personally prefer this route because my mail trade in experience has been lousy, with them occasionally offering significantly less than originally quoted for what seem to be made up reasons.
Don’t know if all countries work the same. I’m in the US, ordered a computer through the veterans/military store and did NOT mention I had a trade-in when I ordered (which meant that they charged the whole amount to my credit card). I picked it up on Friday and took my old computer and the new computer’s order number into an Apple Store on Saturday. They put the trade-in amount on the credit card I had used to order the new one, they said that they can do that if you bring in the trade-in within 14 days.
The whole thing went very smoothly - I got the new computer when I was supposed to, and the trade-in went very smoothly (full trade-in amount approved), the credit appeared on my card within a day. I’ll definitely do it this way again.
The whole thing went very smoothly - I got the new computer when I was supposed to, and the trade-in went very smoothly (full trade-in amount approved), the credit appeared on my card within a day. I’ll definitely do it this way again.
The change was made earlier this year, not entirely sure why.
I was told exactly what you said by Apple's online support chat, but it ended up being not true.
The support chat person told me that in-person trade-ins had to be an on the spot exchange. They could migrate my old computer to my new computer for me, accept the trade-in, and then hand me my new computer. When I attempted to do this, the Apple Store employee looked pained.
"You'll need to leave your computers with us for 3-5 days if you need us to migrate your data for you. We just don't have the capacity to handle things like that." She told me I actually had 14 days to process the trade-in. I just needed to give them the order number.
So I went back a week later and handed in my old M1 Pro. The employee took it, did only the most cursory of checks on it, and submitted my trade-in request for full credit. It took about 5 minutes from start to the time I got my trade-in credit applied to my card.
Given the horror stories people have posted here about their trade-ins, it was a relief for it to go so smoothly. I did mess around with Apple's trade-in estimator online to see what would happen if I changed a few inputs and it seems that Apple only had only 2 estimates for my model of M1 Pro MBP. I either got $940 (US) or nothing.
If you even answered that there was a major scratch on the case, the trade-in value went to $0. That may explain some of the extreme trade-in stories I've read.
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I have done several MacBook Pro trade-ins, it is as @smirking says - I always order online from apple.com (or Apple store on a device), and select "no trade in". As long as I get the old unit back to the store in 2 weeks, they charge it back to my purchasing credit card, no problems. If I happen to miss the 2 week window, they give it to me in gift cards - which I added to my account to pay for movies, AppleCare+, etc etc. But I only missed the window once. BTW - this works the same for iPhones and iPads too.
But what if you’ve done the 0% financing. Wonder if they can apply the trade and adjust the monthly payments?