iPhones with TikTok installed are being offered on eBay for $50,000

TikTok exists in a sort of limbo at the moment, not technically shut down as it got an extension to find a US buyer under the Trump administration, but it’s not available in the iPhone or Android app stores due to liability concerns. So, if you desperately wanted that beautiful, endless vertical video scrolling but didn’t remember to install the app on your phone before the initial ban kicked in, you’ll have to try your luck on eBay, where people are selling phones pre-loaded with TikTok for thousands of dollars.

like It was first spotted by WiredThere are currently around 9,000 item listings on eBay for various smartphones that already have TikTok installed. There is a wide range of devices depending on the make, model and preferred carrier of your phone. For example, you can get the TikTok-equipped Samsung Galaxy A54 5G at Consumer Cellular $250 Or a T-Mobile compatible Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max $450. But for the most part, if you want one of these TikTok devices, you’ll have to be prepared to shell out a lot more than the MSRP.

Most listings have at least three zeros at the end of them, putting the starting price in the thousands, like the iPhone 14 currently listed on $7500 With one person, at time of publishing, currently holding the item in their cart. There are several listings currently asking for tens of thousands of dollars, including one with a list price of $50,000 (Or Best Offer, but either way, you still have to pay the shipping fee which seems a bit trivial, honestly).

It should be noted that there is a difference between the items listed at these prices and the people who actually buy them. While some TikTok phone listings have had thousands of views in the past 24 hours, there is much more interest than sales. Most devices sold, as shown by eBay’s “Completed Sales” filter, show that sellers often settled on the offer rather than the list price. However, some people have managed to take advantage of opportunism: there is a listing for the iPhone 16 Pro Max showing that it was sold at $12,999 List price (although the seller has no history on the platform, so it could be a fake sale).

A similar phenomenon like this has happened before. When Flappy Bird was so angry the creator eventually decided to pull the app for his own sanity, phones with the game installed were sold on eBay as well, including one device that sparked a bidding war that resulted in a winning bid of $99,900. . That sale He was eventually killed by eBay Because it requires scanning all phones sold on its platform and returning them to factory settings before shipping them.

It seems that eBay still requires a factory reset For devices sold through the marketplace, so hopefully sellers who sold a phone with TikTok installed haven’t spent those profits yet.