Thanks for clarifying the reason for the title edit.
While I don’t agree with labeling it a “stolen” printer, as this is an unverified administrative return dispute rather than a police-proven theft, I appreciate your suggestion regarding hardware replacement.
My goal has always been to get this machine fully functional and avoid unnecessary e-waste.
Could you (or anyone on the Snapmaker Team) confirm which specific module holds the registered serial number/MAC address tied to cloud access (e.g., the Mainboard or the Touchscreen/Controller Unit)?
I am completely willing to purchase the replacement module directly from Snapmaker support to assign a clean, legitimate serial number to this machine and resolve the cloud lock.
in my view, you just return the machine to whomever sold it to you and ask for your money back, it’s irrelevant if they knew it was blocked or not, as they still sold it to you, and your business is with them
Even for the sake of argument, returning it isn’t a real solution.
Legally, the school acted in complete good faith on an unverified background issue, so dragging them into a dispute is a non-starter.
Morally, I would never do that anyway, they told me they are putting that money directly toward a kids’ playroom. I’m not going to scrape pennies and leave a local school holding the bag.
My issue is strictly with Snapmaker’s refusal to help solve a problem they co-created.
There are straightforward solutions: unblock the machine for an innocent user, or let me purchase the replacement motherboard/module with a clean serial number directly from them. I am more than willing to pay for the spare part to get this machine 100% operational, prevent e-waste, and move on.
Hi, I am incredibly sorry to hear about your frustrating experience with our support team, which is not the level of service we aim to deliver.
Regarding the SN lock issue you mentioned, you might already learn some background details: this printer was originally part of a replacement order for a previous owner. Our policy requires the old printer to be sent back to us before a new one is shipped. Because that original unit was never returned, the serial number was locked automatically to prevent misuse.
However, we do recognize that your situation is quite unique. You’re a legitimate third-party purchaser through a school donation sale, and you had no knowledge of the device’s history. While we need to enforce our policies, we also don’t want to see innocent users suffer the consequences of someone else’s non-compliance.
To help me look into this further, could you please provide your existing support ticket number and the product’s serial number? I’ll follow up and verify the relevant details.
I think it’s really community-spirited of Snapmaker to share information like this, ditto the other “complaint” thread. I’m sure many other businesses would not be this enlightened, and keep everything behind closed doors.
It’s going “above and beyond” to work with the OP like this – the OP’s proper course of action should have been to return for refund to the seller.
Nonetheless, Snapmaker (and all businesses) must take a strong line against fraud.
The same applies to purchase of any “second hand” goods – how certain is the buyer of the item’s legitimacy (theft, forgery, money laundering…)? Unfortunately, many buyers don’t care how legitimate the purchase is. The only difference here is that the manufacturer has a lever to pull to disable some (only a little) of the functionality. Try that with a Bambu, and the whole thing would be disabled.
Really?!! This sounds like a fraudster’s/thief’s charter to me, and I can hardly believe it. I steal something, I sell it to you. You get legal title and the owner has no rights. No, doesn’t work, and it encourages crime.
It is one of two. Obtaining a second one illegitimately makes transferring the ownership of the first one illegitimate. I buy something, and then con the retailer into providing a second one, then sell one or the other (it does not matter which). I then have the benefit of the item, at no cost.
I think Snapmaker are being very kind (ie reputation conscious) here.
The purpose of this post is not to debate theoretical fraud, and I won’t be baited into an endless argument about legal semantics. This is strictly a practical PSA for the community.
So you say, now, but that’s not how it sounded at the beginning (from the original title you gave this thread), and it doesn’t seem necessary to me to warn people to use due diligence before purchasing an item of unknown origin.
As I have said, and several people agreed, it is not unreasonable for Snapmaker to have blacklisted this printer, and you were making out that it was unreasonable. You claim knowledge of EU law that bestows full rights on an “innocent” purchaser of tainted goods, but it sounds highly dubious and I have no independent verification of that. The UK was in the EU until recently, and it is likely we would have been forced to adopt the same if it were true. In the UK, the only body liable to a purchaser is the vendor. Any manufacturer warranty (for example) is voluntary, over and above legal consumer rights.
You appear to have come out with a win, so I suggest you accept that without further comment.
Under Article 3:11 of the Dutch Civil Code, you cannot claim good faith if you willfully blinded yourself to suspicious signs.
The 3-Year Reclaim Window: The original owner can legally demand the item back from the innocent buyer for up to three years after the theft, without compensating the buyer.
A thief or unauthorized seller can almost never pass valid title to a buyer, meaning the original owner’s right to get their property back is prioritized, even if the buyer was entirely blameless.
Gross Negligence: If you ignore a suspiciously low price and buy the item anyway without asking questions, Dutch courts will view this as gross negligence rather than good faith. You lose your legal protection, and the original owner can reclaim the property. The law assumes you should have known something was wrong. In those cases, you do not acquire lawful title.