Do NOT attempt to try Apple Mac Trade-in (with Phobio). It’s probably a bait and switch scheme almost edging on fraudulent business practices.

I have a 2017 iMac 27 inch 512 GB SSD, 4GB graphics card in excellent condition and I wanted to get MacBook Pro with M1 processor. I paid $2100 for this config with education discount. When I contacted Apple support they made it clear that instant Mac trade-in within Apple store is clearly out of question currently, but I could try online trade-in with their partner Phobio. I was quoted $680 initially with online assessment at apple.com. With my previous experiences with iPhone trade-ins with mobile companies which I never had problems with, I thought I would make this attempt especially with iMac relatively stationary with no physical damage and no problems whatsoever.

However my quote was reduced to $170 from $680 because of - “Your trade quote has been revised due to LCD damage. This includes dead pixels, bruising/burn in, no response on digitizer or any other damage that could be related to the LCD.”

Picture I took before shipping: - https://imgur.com/a/czae8Lj

Screenshot of Apple/Phobio’s inspection with “LCD damage”: - https://imgur.com/a/j0F22nX

Apple/Phobio’s quote reduction from $680 to $170:- https://imgur.com/a/z7ndbfZ

You can be judge of their assessment based on pictures but I’ve never noticed any LCD damage or dead pixels. And I regularly perform software/screen testing including Apple’s device inspection profiler which had no issues whatsoever.

Honestly this is waste of month’s time and effort to handle shipping process and even Apple Care wouldn’t have helped here because device is 3 and half years old. My only hope is my device won’t damaged with Phobio’s subpar packaging. It looks like Phobio’s business practice is to bank on customer’s patience and sunk cost fallacy. Good for them but this is something you need to aware of.