Sounds like "Find My" on iPhones which is apparently meant as theft protection: as long as it's enabled the device will not accept activation with any other account even after a factory reset as long as the owner doesn't input their password and disable the feature.

A lot of buyers of used iPhones and Macbooks find that out the hard way, often because the owners don't even know about that. And actual thieves don't need to care about it as long as they find a buyer who doesn't know about it either.