Release autopilot/intune from laptops purchased from a leasing company

Question

Hello, I have a company that buys off-lease computers from leasing companies. Over the last couple years we have accumulated a number of laptops that are locked to the original end user with autopilot/intune. The leasing company tells us they aren't able to get the equipment unlocked by the end user and any time we've tried to contact end users, we don't hear back. We have called support many times and after 8+ hours of bouncing around support staff, we had someone tell us we can setup an account at support.microsoft.com/OAS and open a one-time support ticket for $400USD to get these laptops unlocked. We signed up, it takes us to the Azure portal and we can't do anything in it since we don't have an Azure license. I'm willing to pay for the support to get this taken care of but is there anywhere I can go that doesn't require the Azure portal? It just sends us in circles.

I have the invoices, spreadsheets, etc. to show we have purchased the specific equipment we are trying to unlock

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks,

Mohit

Answer 1

I believe you could do a free of charge MS case and ask support to remove the identity from previous owner's tenant. MS support does require you a proof of ownership (which you told you have, so no problem). Try to open this case via Intune portal. You don't need Azure license for that.

Anyway, this will become more and more of a problem nowadays, so it is better you figure our a test process before you buy anything from leasing company. It should be their responsibility to ensure that device hash for autopilot assignment is removed, not yours.

Answer 2

@Mohit Sharma, For your scenario, I have two methods you can try. The first I think is you can request an Intune trial.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/intune/fundamentals/free-trial-sign-up

And then go to Intune portal to open case to get help to delete the Autopilot records.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/get-support

Another method I can think is you can try to open case by calling the phone number in the following link and see if the case can be transferred to Intune team.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/global-customer-service-phone-numbers-c0389ade-5640-e588-8b0e-28de8afeb3f2

Hope the above suggestion can help you.

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