Google Alert on Mac OS X Startup?

[theALmighty66]

Hi!

I [finally] took my laptop for some repairs, which wound up only being a keyboard housing replacement. Everything was good, great & find until I checked my email & saw a suspicious Google sign-in attempt was blocked.

The shop's response:

"Regarding your google warning it is not something you should be concern about because google has a feature to check its location every time you turn the Computer on and it will send an alert if it is different than the usual and original address.

All the information you see is pointing to our location including IP address."
​

Is he correct or did he somehow try to log into my Google account? Thanks!​

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello,

If you have Safari or Chrome set to launch automatically at startup, and the password is saved, it may have produced that message. I guess they could have tried to sign into your account during the repair, but that is highly unlikely in most instances.

Who did the repair?

C

 

[theALmighty66]

No, I don't have any browsers set to load at startup at all actually. I might as well disclose where the repair happened since you can figure it out from the IP address anyway. It was Advanced Micro Distributions Channel in central NJ.

I have a funny feeling about this. I opened my screen captures folder & the view setting was changed from Cover Flow to Icons too—which I know I didn't do. 8^/

 

[theALmighty66]

Also: how do you suppose I should handle this, i.e. carry on with the shop?

 

[Cory Cooper]

OK, thanks for the additional information.

Having serviced thousands of Macs over the years, I can tell you that most repair folks simply don't care to or have the time to snoop around customer's data. Of course, I am sure there are some that do, but it is extremely rare, simply due to the amount of machines in the queue.

After a hardware repair, the Mac is tested to ensure the issue is resolved, mostly with Apple diagnostic software/utilities. It depends on the shop, but all Apple Authorized Service Providers have access to most of the same diagnostic tools as an Apple Store.

When having your Mac serviced, it is always a good idea to create a test user to allow service technicians to login to the Mac. Also, it's a good idea to turn off automatic login.

-In regards to the Google alert, was the Mac there on Dec 20 at that time?
-When was the repair completed and picked up?
-Was there only one attempt?

I would give them the benefit of the doubt in this case, and not worry about it too much. AMDC have very positive reviews as far as I can tell. And, since they offer so many services, and have multiple locations, I am sure their queue is very large as I mentioned before.

It is really up to you on whether to pursue this with them. Good luck, and let us know if you have any additional questions or concerns.

C