4 ms·

A decade ago I can remember forums suggesting you take out your hard drive out of your Mac when you send it in for repair. Part of the reason was privacy and th

by wil421 5y ago

A decade ago I can remember forums suggesting you take out your hard drive out of your Mac when you send it in for repair. Part of the reason was privacy and the other part was user upgraded RAM or HD being removed by the repair techs and you getting billed for it. I believe there was another case where the FBI was getting Best Buy’s Geek Squad repair centers to report CP.

sgtnoodle 5y ago
I sent in a laptop once to Best Buy that came back with a smaller hard drive. I think it is likely that a local employee swapped it before sending it into the real repair facility.
ratww 5y ago
I once tried checking in a MacBook Air without SSD once at a 3rd-party authorized repair center, and they flat out refused to repair once they noticed the SSD was missing, and said Apple would "blacklist" me from any future repair. I communicated this to Apple and while Apple apologized profusely to me, and even paid for the new battery and repair (I didn't ask for it, it was out of warranty for 5 years), but I still never trusted third-party repairers again... that put off buying new Apple stuff until I became able to move to a place with an Apple Store. I'm happy to say however that I never had this problem going to the Apple Store in Berlin, but not everyone lives in a big city with one of those.
- wil421 5y ago
  Agreed. The Apple Stores in the US are good with repairs but once you have to send it to a repair center you might have issues.
- martin_a 5y ago
  > I'm happy to say however that I never had this problem going to the Apple Store in Berlin I visited the store in Augsburg once (although... is that an official dealership?) and they wanted to keep my work MBP for two weeks while repairing it. As it was a new one (butterfly keyboard broken) you could not remove the HDD/SSD, I think. Took it back with me again, keyboard stayed unrepaired for as long as I worked with that company.
  - ratww 5y ago
    The Butterfly keyboard MBs are a PITA to disassemble. I just got a new M1 Air and while I have no idea how bad it is, I still keep two accounts (one empty for repair, one encrypted and backed up for me) just in case, although it seems Apple itself doesn't ask the password... since I don't think I can't remove the SSD myself :/
- kergonath 5y ago
  > and said Apple would "blacklist" me from any future repair. This sounds highly illegal. Also, why would Apple care? I can see how repair shops could want that, but I don’t get the thought process that would lead to this becoming Apple’s policy. I would not trust these people anymore either.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- delfinom 5y ago
  Don't blame the repair ship. Apple legitimately runs draconian level control over repair shops that partner with them. They want to follow the rules to the T or Apple will drop them. They more than like misconstrued the rules.
grishka 5y ago
> user upgraded RAM or HD being removed by the repair techs and you getting billed for it. I'd call that a theft.
gambiting 5y ago
>>I believe there was another case where the FBI was getting Best Buy’s Geek Squad repair centers to report CP. I mean, that sounds great in principle, except that I do remmeber reading about a case where they reported some older dude for having CP on his laptop, and it took him being arrested and fired from his job and obiously smeared in every newspaper possible, before prosecutor finally looked at the pictures and figured that yes, indeed, the "CP" in question was just pictures of his grandchildren in a pool with other family around.

by wil421 5y ago

sgtnoodle 5y ago

I sent in a laptop once to Best Buy that came back with a smaller hard drive. I think it is likely that a local employee swapped it before sending it into the real repair facility.

ratww 5y ago

I once tried checking in a MacBook Air without SSD once at a 3rd-party authorized repair center, and they flat out refused to repair once they noticed the SSD was missing, and said Apple would "blacklist" me from any future repair. I communicated this to Apple and while Apple apologized profusely to me, and even paid for the new battery and repair (I didn't ask for it, it was out of warranty for 5 years), but I still never trusted third-party repairers again... that put off buying new Apple stuff until I became able to move to a place with an Apple Store. I'm happy to say however that I never had this problem going to the Apple Store in Berlin, but not everyone lives in a big city with one of those.

wil421 5y ago
Agreed. The Apple Stores in the US are good with repairs but once you have to send it to a repair center you might have issues.
martin_a 5y ago
> I'm happy to say however that I never had this problem going to the Apple Store in Berlin I visited the store in Augsburg once (although... is that an official dealership?) and they wanted to keep my work MBP for two weeks while repairing it. As it was a new one (butterfly keyboard broken) you could not remove the HDD/SSD, I think. Took it back with me again, keyboard stayed unrepaired for as long as I worked with that company.
- ratww 5y ago
  The Butterfly keyboard MBs are a PITA to disassemble. I just got a new M1 Air and while I have no idea how bad it is, I still keep two accounts (one empty for repair, one encrypted and backed up for me) just in case, although it seems Apple itself doesn't ask the password... since I don't think I can't remove the SSD myself :/
kergonath 5y ago
> and said Apple would "blacklist" me from any future repair. This sounds highly illegal. Also, why would Apple care? I can see how repair shops could want that, but I don’t get the thought process that would lead to this becoming Apple’s policy. I would not trust these people anymore either.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
delfinom 5y ago
Don't blame the repair ship. Apple legitimately runs draconian level control over repair shops that partner with them. They want to follow the rules to the T or Apple will drop them. They more than like misconstrued the rules.

grishka 5y ago

> user upgraded RAM or HD being removed by the repair techs and you getting billed for it. I'd call that a theft.

gambiting 5y ago

>>I believe there was another case where the FBI was getting Best Buy’s Geek Squad repair centers to report CP. I mean, that sounds great in principle, except that I do remmeber reading about a case where they reported some older dude for having CP on his laptop, and it took him being arrested and fired from his job and obiously smeared in every newspaper possible, before prosecutor finally looked at the pictures and figured that yes, indeed, the "CP" in question was just pictures of his grandchildren in a pool with other family around.