Bought a laptop from craigslist, can i just do the owernship transfer myself?

or will i need information from the previous owner? i'm on Dell's website: http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/change_order/tag_transfer
and it seems anyone that has hold of the laptop can claim ownership, such as someone stealing my laptop then transferring it to their name (although that would be a stupid move haha).

 

You know, I've had mixed messages from Dell on this one. There's a form on the Dell site that claims that you only need a service tag and an express service code to transfer the ownership, but doesn't give you a way to transfer without the previous owner's information. I've been able to call up a Dell rep and have the rep transfer an ownership without the previous owner's information, but only after hitting two more reps who both said it was impossible.

So I think it's just like any customer service issue. If you're patient enough, you can probably get by without the previous owner's info, but the official stance is otherwise.