Happy story time:
A few weeks ago, I bought a used iMac on KSL Classifieds from a guy named Daniel who is in the business of reselling refurbished Macs. The price was right and he offered to deliver.
SOLD!
I brought this beautiful 27″ iMac home, spent hours getting all of my stuff restored to it from backups. Everything seemed fantastic.
It froze up once (kernel panic, to be exact, for the nerds out there).
I didn’t think much of it, rebooted, and kept working.
Soon the WIFI connection dropped. I reset the WIFI, got back online, and kept working.
Over the course of the next hours and days, this iMac dropped WIFI and crashed with increasing frequency, to the point where every 10 minutes it would crash without any warning. It became impossible to get any work done.
Over the next many days, I spent countless hours researching solutions to these problems.
- Reset the NVRAM.
- Change the MTU and various other WIFI settings.
- Reset the SMC.
- Swap out the RAM.
- Reinstall OS X.
- Do a full HD wipe and do a full clean install.
- Take the machine apart and do a full dusting / cleaning (didn’t need it, it was pristine).
- Drank beer and waxed philosophical about it with computer nerd friend Jeremy.
- Conduct seance, summon Steve Jobs.
Nothing worked, though the seance was fun.
My frustration level was higher than Joe Rogan interviewing Cheech & Chong.
I bought this used computer from a private seller. I had no expectations of a warranty. Nevertheless, I decided to ask for what I wanted. Worst case scenario is that I’d be told “no” and nothing would be different.
I emailed the seller, Daniel, explaining what had happened, detailing every troubleshooting step I’d been through. I asked him if he could replace or refund the computer.
He agreed to replace it with a computer of similar value. In the mean time, Steve had hooked me up with a better replacement iMac. I didn’t need two iMacs, but I was still very happy that he was willing to do anything to remedy the situation, though he wasn’t obligated to. I planned to just sell the replacement he brought me and use those funds on another project.
Daniel arrived at the studio without a computer in his arms.
“My reputation is more important than a little money”, he said, handing me a stack of bills, refunding the original purchase in full.
There are good people out there who want to do the right thing, my friends.
And, if you ever want a used Mac, most definitely buy one from Daniel on KSL Classifieds.