A CBC News investigation has found that Apple often overcharges its customers for repairing their damaged MacBooks and iPhones when compared to a third-party repair store.

In an investigation carried out at an Apple Store in Toronto, the Apple Store employee quoted upwards of $1,200 for fixing a non-functional display on a MacBook.

This is a common issue with MacBooks and Apple is charging almost the price of a new MacBook for fixing it saying it would need to replace the logic board and the top case at the very minimum. Plus, if Apple feels the need to replace the display as well, that would add another $780 to the total repair cost.

The same MacBook was then fixed by Lous Rossmann, who runs a third-party computer repair store on First Avenue in Manhattan. As per his analysis, a pin which should have been connected to the backlight was not in contact leading to the issue. At the very maximum, he would have charged $150 to his customers provided they wanted him to replace the pin entirely.

“If somebody wanted me to just bend the pin back, I wouldn’t charge them for that,” he said, adding that he would ask his customers for between $75 to $150 if they wanted to replace the pin entirely.

Apple declined to comment on the report but claimed that its customers are served best by its “certified experts using genuine parts.”

Apple does not honor repairs done by third-party shops so any repair conducted by an unauthorized store will lead to the warranty of the device being nullified.

As if this was not already enough, Apple is also making it difficult for third-party shops to carry out repairs. As noted by iFixit’s co-founder Kyle Wiens, Apple intentionally uses its own type of screws and glues batteries into its place to make repairs for third-party repair shops difficult.

Do you think Apple has overcharged you for conducting any kind of repair job on your iPhone or MacBook? Have you ever tried availing a third-party repair shop service for your faulty Apple?