Bought a MacBook air from a private party. It is in recovery assistant and won't get to point to erase and reinstall mac os

arto7 wrote:

When we tried to run it at work so he could show me it was in working condition we could not get in to the device. He said he told his daughter to erase it last night. Device shows that it is in Recovery Assistant. Nothing shows if I choose Start up disc so maybe she already erased the disc. In any event, whatever I try nothing happens that helps. I get:

Activate Mac> Choose WiFi> Then Activation Lock "this mac is linked to an apple ID. Enter the apple ID and password that was previously used with this Mac...

It then shows a partially obscured email address for the previous owner.

And I cannot do anything else. I don't expect them to want to give me her Apple ID. Would the device password be OK if I can get that?

The seller had to do this: What to do before you sell, give away, trade in, or recycle your Mac - Apple Support

If the seller can't or won't remove the activation lock, return it and get your money back.

There is no way to bypass the activation lock. You can't bypass the activation lock. It is completely useless in the state it's currently in and you can't fix it.