All reviews of Gustavo Maya
Review about: Back Market
2018 MacBook Pro 15
What is my problem with Back Market? If my review has been any indication, I am pretty unhappy with them because out of the 3 orders I have placed through them, all have been incorrect. Not as in receiving the wrong color or the wrong condition, flat out the wrong configuration, imagine paying for an upgraded graphics chip and getting the stock one instead, wouldn’t be a big deal unless you already paid and won’t receive a refund for the price difference or will have to outright return for a full refund so you can purchase the correct system from someone else. Let me get into the specifics of my disdain for this “refurbished” marketplace.
In July of 2021, I decided to upgrade from my 2013 MacBook Pro Retina 15 inch with something with a little more graphics horsepower as I was getting into graphical editing and my old MacBook Pro sounded like a jet getting ready for take-off. I went online to find a suitable replacement and after deciding eBay was too risky, I did some digging on macofalltrades.com, Apple's own refurbished site, and Back Market. Back Marker had the best prices and, best of all, came with a 1-year warranty. That meant something to me, I felt that they would stand by the quality of the system they sent, and if it was wrong, they would make it right. Biggest mistake ever. I purchased a 2017 MacBook Pro 15-inch for the insane price of $184.28. Yes, it seems like an extremely low price and a steal of a deal but the seller's page indicated they had over 20 units at this price point. I thought the seller just has a huge stock and wants to unload them to make room for newer stock. The MBP I purchased was 4 years old by this point and the M1 had already been released, plus this generation of MBP still had the dreaded keyboard issues which I wasn’t all too concerned about dealing with. Within a few hours, I receive an email from Back Market informing me that the sale had been canceled by the seller due to “availability issues”. The seller was claiming his selling page did not properly update his stock level so he did not have 20 of the indicated MacBooks, he actually had none. The very next day I go back to his page and he again has more than 20 units available, except for the price, which is now $600 dollars. Were this on eBay or Amazon or some other online retailer, they would have honored the price and let the seller correct the price for future transactions, Back Market chose to side with the seller and would not even entertain a discount for the inconvenience. Strike one.
Fast forward to March of 2023, I am again looking to upgrade my 2013 MBP that has soldiered on with a repasted CPU and GPU but is now having trouble keeping up with modern tasks. Again, Back Market has the best available deals. I purchase a space gray 2018 MacBook Pro 15 inch, 2.6 GHz i7, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB storage, and AMD Radeon Pro 560x graphics. Not quite M1 performance but respectable for the price of $538.07. I received it 4 days later and while setting it up encountered two issues. First, even though I was logged into my iCloud account, I could not disable “find my Mac” because another account was associated with the system. This is an issue as the previous owner still retained control over a few aspects of my system and could cause issues if they chose. The second issue was the battery showed less than 100 charge cycles but recommended battery service as it could only hold 4847 mAh out of the original 7336 mAh, or 66% battery life. After speaking to customer service, they informed me they required all systems to ship with at least 85% battery life. Due to that issue alone, I was sent a prepaid label to return the system for a refund or replacement pending sellers’ stock. By this point, I had already wiped my old system and did not want to go through the pain of having to set it up again to then wipe it again. I instead went back into Back Market to purchase a different system and would send this one back when the new one arrived so I wasn’t stuck for at least a week without my MBP. Strike 2.
The third MBP was another 2018 15-inch with 2.6 Ghz i7, 32 GB RAM, 512 GB storage, and an AMD Vega 16 graphics. This bump to 32 GB RAM and the Vega 16 was only $60 more due to using a military discount I had not known I could use on a previous order. Purchased on April 1 and received on April 6. This MBP did not have another iCloud account on it and the battery was in good condition, at 88% capacity. The problem is that the upgraded Vega 16 was not in this system, instead, it had the stock AMD Pro 560x. The Vega 16 benchmarks 37% better than the Pro 560x, especially in graphics-intensive tasks. Again, did not get what I ordered and paid for. Customer service is sorry and says to return to the seller to get a replacement or refund. The problem is the seller keeps sending subpar systems or incorrect specifications and I am supposed to cross my fingers and hope they will get it right the next time. The seller does not have the configuration of the system I ordered anymore, so I would have to wait a week for them to receive the system and issue a refund. In the meantime, I am out of a system and the price for the system I ordered through another seller now starts at $815. The whole reason I chose Back Market is affordability, if I could buy one directly from Apple, I would. A refurbished M1 MacBook Air is less than $815, and I am pretty sure Apple would send one with a brand-new battery and without an iCloud account on it.
Lesson learned, Back Market may have been relevant during the lockdown years but now has clearly plummeted in quality assurance and quality control. There is no guarantee you will get what you order, you will get something and you may just decide to ... it up or you will be stuck in a cycle of receiving and returning systems until you get what you ordered. In the meantime, you will wait, a long time while the system ships UPS to you or back to the seller and then 48 hours for the seller to examine the system and send out a replacement system at their discretion, or issue you a refund. I will be holding onto this system until I get my refund back for system 2 and then I will go to Apple.com and order an M1 or M2 through them. I will pay more but I am paying for the security of knowing they will stand by the customer and make sure the system they send is correct and in good working order. I cannot recommend Back Market any less to anyone looking for a used system. If this is your only recourse, try macofalltrades or even Swappa for more affordable deals.