Stuck in catch-22, please help !

Question

Since I cannot afford to purchase new Macbooks, I have always relied on eBay for my purchases. I recently "upgraded" from an early 2008 MB to a late 2010 MB. Because the previous owner had not cleared his data, I used instructions that I found here in the forums to 'restore macbook to original factory settings'.
I called Apple and they said here's how you restore:
1. Start computer up, holding OPTION key
2. Select Recovery
3. Select language (I'll choose English)
4. Disc Utility
5. Macintosh HD
6. Select Erase tab
7. Erase Disc
8. back to OSX Utilities - Select Reinstall OSX (this makes it so your most recently installed operating system will be restored.  I bought my Macbook as a Leopard, but it runs Mountain Lion now.)
9. Reinstall to Mac HD
Well, when I get to step 9, it wants the apple ID that was used to purchase Mountain Lion. I did not purchase Mt Lion - it was already installed on the used MB. I have tried reinstalling Snow Leopard (time machine back-up from my 2008MB) but the msg says that I cannot do that because it is a different model MB. I tried purchasing Mt. Lion, but it is not available for my 2008 MB. HELP ! !

Answer 1

You will need to purchase either a Retail Snow Leopard DVD (White disc not grey) or call apple giving the, your MacBooks serial No. To purchase the original restore discs for that model. This will restore it to snow leopard, them if you want to install lion or mountain lion, you will have to purchase that from the Mac App Store from your own iTunes ID as it will be linked to your machine.
There will be no other legal way around this. Always purchase a mac with its original restore discs, unless of course it's a machine that was originally shipped with lion/ML and has access to the Internet recovery.