iPhones With TikTok Put in Are Being Provided on eBay for $50,000

TikTok exists in a kind of limbo in the intervening time, not technically shut down because it obtained an extension to seek out an American purchaser below the Trump administration, however not out there within the iPhone or Android app shops as a result of legal responsibility considerations. So in the event you’re completely fiending for that candy, candy infinite scroll of vertical video however didn’t bear in mind to put in the app in your cellphone earlier than the smooth ban hit, you’ll need to attempt your luck on eBay, the place individuals are promoting telephones pre-loaded with the TikTok app for hundreds of {dollars}.

As first spotted by Wired, there are at the moment about 9,000 eBay merchandise listings for numerous smartphones that have already got TikTok put in. There’s a wide selection of units relying on the popular make, mannequin, and service of your cellphone. For instance, you’ll be able to seize a TikTok-equipped Samsung Galaxy A54 5G on Client Mobile for $250 or a T-Cellular-compatible Apple iPhone 11 Professional Max for $450. However for probably the most half, if you’d like one among these TikTok machines, you’ll need to be able to fork out a lot, way more than the MSRP.

Most listings have at the least three zeros on the finish of them, placing the beginning worth within the hundreds—like this iPhone 14 at the moment listed at $7,500 with, on the time of publication, one individual at the moment holding the merchandise of their cart. There are a number of listings at the moment asking within the tens of hundreds of {dollars}, together with one which has an inventory worth of $50,000 (or greatest supply, however both means, you’ll nonetheless need to pay delivery which appears a little bit petty, frankly).

It’s price noting that there’s a distinction between gadgets being listed at these costs and other people truly shopping for them. Whereas among the listings for telephones with TikTok put in have hundreds of views within the final 24 hours, there’s much more consideration than gross sales. Many of the units which have bought, as proven by eBay’s “accomplished gross sales” filter, present that sellers typically settled for a proposal and never the checklist worth. Nevertheless, some of us have efficiently cashed in on opportunism: There’s a itemizing for an iPhone 16 Professional Max that reveals it bought for the $12,999 checklist worth (although the vendor has zero historical past on the platform so it’s attainable it’s a phony sale).

An identical phenomenon like this has occurred earlier than. Again when Flappy Fowl was all the craze and the creator finally determined to drag the app for his personal private sanity, telephones that had the sport put in bought on eBay, too, together with one machine that produced a bidding warfare that resulted in a $99,900 profitable bid. That sale ultimately got killed by eBay as a result of it requires all telephones bought on its platform to be wiped and restored to manufacturing facility settings earlier than being shipped out.

It does seem that eBay still requires factory resets for units bought via its market, so hopefully, the sellers who’ve bought a cellphone with TikTok put in haven’t spent these earnings fairly but.