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by newaccount74 1076 days ago
Thieves might need a fence to sell a locked Macbook for parts, but there's no way a thief would sell an unlocked, working Macbook to someone for 200€. It's trivial to sell working Macbooks on local classified websites. You don't need a fence to sell an unlocked Macbook.

In my experience, if you sell it for a good price (10-20% below average) it's going to be sold within days. So the reward would be 800€ for unlocked Macbook vs maybe 100€ for a locked Macbook if you are lucky selling it for parts to a repair shop that doesn't ask questions.

And that's assuming you have a base model: Models with extra RAM and SSD go for higher prices, but if you sell it for parts those upgrades are worthless.

1 comments

> So the reward would be 800€ for unlocked Macbook vs maybe 100€ for a locked Macbook

As someone who frequently browses used electronics - you're way off on the locked Macbook prices - you probably won't even get a locked iPad (latest 3 generations) for €100 - let alone a MacBook.

A locked 2020 M1 MacBook Air is going for $319[1] on eBay. Compared to $600[2] for an unlocked version of the same model on the same site. So my instinct of about half-price for locked device checks out

1. https://www.ebay.com/itm/364344402004

2. https://www.ebay.com/itm/266332684599

I wasn't saying that you could buy a locked Macbook for 100€, I was trying to say that the thief might sell it for 100€ to a dealer, because it's harder to sell a locked Macbook for parts than a working Macbook.

But maybe I was wrong, and locked Macbooks are just as easy to sell as unlocked Macbooks.