Are People Actually Buying iPhones on eBay with TikTok Installed for Thousands?
Kyiv, Ukraine - October 1, 2019: Studio shot of hand holding Apple iPhone 8 with TikTok logotype on a screen. Isolated on a vibrant cyan paper background.
President Trump did his best to swoop in and save the day for TikTok. While Trump, via an Executive Order, gave TikTok a 75-day extension to certify to Congress that a sale to a US buyer is underway, he wasn’t successful in preserving TikTok’s availability in Apple’s App Store or Android’s Play Store, as Apple and Google are sticking to the letter of the law.
Unless TikTok finds a buyer that’s ultimately approved by Congress, Apple and Android users have likely missed their chance to download the app to their devices. Queue the craziness! Old iPhone models with TikTok pre-installed are listed for sale on eBay at astronomical prices.
A quick eBay search reveals an iPhone 15 Pro Max with TikTok for $3,000, a purple iPhone 14 with TikTok for $40,000, an iPhone 12 Pro Max with TikTok for $50,000, and everything in between. What’s going on? Are people actually buying these?
Sort of. While people are buying iPhones on eBay for the TikTok app, if you filter the search to show “sold” and “completed sale” items, there’s a catch. Despite list prices as high as $10,000, these sales say “Best offer accepted.” eBay doesn’t show the price those items actually sold for, but it’s likely a lot less. These buyers must feel pretty foolish. After all, during Trump’s first administration, TikTok was given 90 days to sell almost four years ago. All they had to do was download it from the App Store.
But wait a minute. How are these people selling their iPhones to someone with an app downloaded and available to use? How does the buyer access the iPhone? Did they set up a new Apple ID specifically for the sale? We don’t know. What we do know is that eBay’s guide to selling an Apple device with iOS 10.2 or later says the iPhone should be reset before being sold.
Does that mean it’s eBay’s policy? We searched but couldn’t find this requirement for iPhones to be reset before sale. However, in 2014, eBay removed an iPhone 5s listing with Flappy Bird installed. The iPhone was listed for $99,900 and had received several bids. The Flappy Bird founder didn’t like the attention he was getting from the game’s success, despite it netting him $50,000 per day in ad revenue, so he decided to yank it from the App Store. Back then, the LA Times reported eBay ultimately did state, in an email, that phones must be restored to factory settings before being sold. We’ll keep an eye out for updates. It looks like eBay may be reviewing some transactions.
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