[londons_explore]

I think the reason for the return credit is to prevent another phone or device manufacturer building a device around an apple component.

Apple displays and cameras are certainly not something you can buy in bulk on the open market as a device manufacturer.

[gambiting]

If someone was trying to build a business around buying iPhone parts through their repair website, I'd question their sanity. Even if that return credit didn't exist, how many replacement cameras or whatever could you really order before Apple would shut you down? 10? 50? 100? What kind of product could you possibly build with that?

[cyral]

This is probably why it requires your serial number, so they can track the number of repairs made for each device.