As you may or may not have read (Can ColdFusion Aid in the Recovery of My Stolen Macbook) I had a break-in a few months ago and lost a couple of Macbooks in the process.

I called Apple to see if they kept any kind of check on serviced laptops against the NCIC database. After explaining three times that I was not trying to get them to give me my serial number but only wanted to know if they checked serial numbers, they finally said, "Absolutely not". The reasoning was that they were more concerned with the speed of the service requests and did not want to waste time searching a database of stolen serial numbers.

Apple would rather service your stolen laptop under your Apple Care plan for a thief in a speedy manner than help catch the thief? After mentioning that, the new reason was that they simply "just weren't setup to do that".

I only have one question, WTF Apple?

I know people who have bought used laptops off of eBay and Craigslist to only end up in a local mom and pop comp shop for repairs. Instead of getting it repaired, they were told that the shop would not service it because the serial numbers came back as stolen and that the police were being called.

If Jim-bob can look it up why can't Apple? Pawn shops check serials against the NCIC database every day. I guess Apple would just rather you buy a new [insert shiny Apple product here] instead of recovering your old one. Mo money, mo money, mo money...

Every time I deal with Apple lately, I say to myself, "My friend Damon is right! Apple IS the new Microsoft!"