Used 60D is unregisterable, unsupportable

[klnas]

I recently purchased a used Fortinet 60D (ebay) to learn about Fortinet FWs. I also mistakenly bricked it. Bootloader works so I can tftp an image to it, if I could get one. So I've tried to buy support, but it looks like that won't work either.

According to Customer Care:

....

2) The current owner of the unit submits a customer service ticket via the support.fortinet.com asking to have the unit removed from the account or transferred to the new owner. The ticket details includes the unit serial number and the account to which the unit is to be transferred.

...

well that's impossible if it is second hand.  I can't buy support (to download any version of firmware to restore to system) because I can't register it. If anyone has any ideas, because I'm out of them.

This is very disappointing

[SecurityPlus]

Can you communicate to the seller or via ebay to request that the current owner requests that the unit be transferred to you the new owner?

[klnas]

I have contacted Ebay seller. I am not too hopeful. It am very surprised Fortinet does not have trial/demo licensing. 

[Yurisk]

Fortinet does have evaluation lics but for the VM images, not physical ones.  

All the trouble of moving the account for this Fortigate from previous owner to you most probably futile - if this Fortigate does not have valid support with the previous owner (snowball chances in hell it will, on ebay).  

[James_G]

It gets better - the unit could have been registered with forticloud by previous owner, so they would have remote management capability of the unit, and factory reset will not clear this as it's tied to serial number.

Basically - don't purchase second fortigates.

[Kenundrum]

Some years ago I bought a few fortigates from ebay. I believe some of the policies on fortinet's side may have changed since then to further dissuade people buying used equipment, but here's what I did. 

When I booted it up, the previously registered owner was listed under the registration info in the dashboards. I bought it from a parts recycler, but the previous owner appeared to be a regional ISP. So it makes sense that the ISP would get rid of a bunch of older CPE through a third party. 

I contacted support and explained the situation- I even mentioned the email address that appeared in the registration info. I simply wanted to transfer the ownership of the device into my "home" Fortinet support account so that I could attach it to forticloud and perhaps renew support. The Fortinet rep that responded was super helpful. The process was that they needed to reach out to the previous owner asking them to confirm the situation and to confirm that the device was not stolen or whatever. If the other party did not respond within 2 weeks, the device could be transferred to my account. The previous owner did not respond to their requests, so within about 3 weeks it was put onto my account.