Have you encounter this? Refurbished Mac mini bought from apple.com bounded to an unknown Apple ID.

[zhaoxin]

Last week, I bought a refurbished M1 Mac mini from apple.com. Everything worked fine for days until...

Yesterday, I wanted to reinstall Ventura with brand new data. So I formatted the disk in recovery mode. For M1 Mac mini, after I formatted the disk, there was a force reboot. After the reboot, there was a Mac Activation. And the system said that my Mac was bounded to an Apple ID started with "d" and ended with "iCloud.com". However, the Apple ID was unknown to me as mine was a gmail account. As I can not provide the password, I could not use the Mac any more.

I had to contact Apple technique support. The resolution was to fill some forms on line to prove that I was the real owner and waited until Apple remove the Apple ID from my Mac. As the staff of Apple said, the process may took as long as 30 days.

30 days was too long, so I arranged a return to apple on this Saturday as mine was in 14 days. If apple does not remove the Apple ID before this Saturday, I will return this Mac mini and buy another one.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I don't recall reading about that kind of incident on here before. I am not surprised, though. Someone at Apple failed to do their job properly in inspecting the Mac during the refurbished process.

I wouldn't wait on Apple. I would go ahead and return and get another one.

 

[Miat]

30 days?!?

I wouldn't be accepting that to be able to use my just-bought-direct-from-Apple computer.

 

[pshufd]

I would bring it into my local Apple Store and they would either take care of it for me in the store or I'd return it there and order another. In general, they have been able to fix oddball problems for me in the past. I guess being present with ID and a receipt is proof enough - which is why I generally prefer to deal with any issues in the store rather than online.

 

[zhaoxin]

I agree to each of you. However, I can't. As mine was a refurbished Mac. The local store could not deal with it. And the stock of the refurbished Macs are not stable. I can return it. But I didn't know when I would buy another one.

My goal was to fix this issue and use it as quick as possible. So a week is the longest time I can wait.

 

[antiprotest]

Sounds like it's just furbished and someone forgot the "re" part.

 

[mi7chy]

You should ask for a partial refund for the headache and inconvenience otherwise tell them you'll return it.

As always, good practice to do a clean install of MacOS to ensure it's not iCloud locked while you still have proof of purchase otherwise you're SOL.

 

[zhaoxin]

I just wanted to solve this issue ASAP. Sadly, one of the tech support staff I spoke from Apple tried to blame me for this. She kept on asking me if I had other people used my Mac and that should be those people's id. However, mine was home use and only I used it.

Also, in her theory, as I first logged in macOS, there was no locked Apple ID to unlock. There should no Apple ID locked at all. But I think maybe the lock in macOS and the lock in Mac recovery were different processes. And the fact proved my theory.

 

[mi7chy]

She's wrong. You can successfully create and login with a user account but still be device activation locked which rears its ugly head once you clean install MacOS. They clearly have a log of previous owner(s) and their iCloud account. At this point, just file a BBB report and return it if they're going to play the blame game.

 

[zhaoxin]

Good News! Apple has removed the activation lock of my Mac mini. According to the mail Apple sent to me. (Under the red line quote.) One should format the disk and reinstall macOS or the activation lock will return.

I think that maybe what was forgotten to do by Apple at the first place.