Secondhand telephones with TikTok put in are being listed on eBay for hundreds of {dollars}. And it seems that some folks would possibly truly be shopping for them.
Regardless of US president Donald Trump signing an government order on Monday delaying any potential ban of the social media app for 75 days, TikTok stays absent from all US app shops—with Apple and Google giving no hints on whether or not it would return. Which means if you’re in America and delete the app or lose your telephone, you might be at the moment locked out, with no technique to obtain it once more. For content material creators, model entrepreneurs, and social media managers, that might spell catastrophe. And an costly one at that.
Opportunistic eBayers have taken the possibility to money in on this misfortune. A fast seek for “TikTok telephone” brings up greater than 9,000 listings of used smartphones from the likes of Apple and Samsung, all with the TikTok app already put in.
That is doable by the vendor merely signing out of the iCloud or Google account related to the machine fairly than restoring the telephone again to manufacturing unit settings. Any purchaser would then should be cautious to not sync to any current cloud backup they’ve, to keep away from dropping the app they’ve paid a lot to get, in addition to making certain any safety measures are eliminated by the vendor.
It goes with out saying that anybody contemplating this route should purchase with excessive warning, significantly given the asking worth many sellers are attempting to cost.
You could find telephones with TikTok listed for as a lot as $50,000 underneath eBay’s Purchase It Now promoting format, but it surely’s laborious to consider anybody may actually suppose their telephone would promote for that—and there is no signal that they’ve.
There are various extra listed within the $2,000 to $5,000 vary, however as as to whether anybody is definitely shopping for them at this worth, it nonetheless appears unlikely.
What may be stated is that, regardless of the inflated costs, there is curiosity. These telephones are promoting, however for precisely how a lot is tougher to determine. Choose the “offered” filter on eBay’s search and there are many gross sales that look like accomplished, however just about all of them have an undisclosed “greatest supply accepted” be aware linked to them.
Any completed auctions with extremely inflated costs look to have had their gadgets relisted shortly after, suggesting an unsuccessful sale, with solely people who sit at near market worth for secondhand telephones trying to have truly offered.
A fast look at auctions which are at the moment working additionally reveals these telephones are attracting rather more affordable costs than an preliminary search would possibly recommend.
Whether or not the TikTok premium is actual is considerably unclear, then, however that is not stopping folks from making an attempt. Outcomes for the TikTok telephone search time period went up by over 2,000 gadgets in the course of the course of writing this text—a way of urgency little question pushed alongside by the very fact the app could possibly be returned to US app shops at any time.
In the intervening time, a TikTok search on both Apple’s App Retailer or the Google Play retailer is met with statements citing authorized necessities as the explanation the app will not be accessible. That is regardless of Trump’s government order clearly instructing the Division of Justice to “take no motion to implement the Act or impose any penalties towards any entity for any noncompliance with the Act.”
Whether or not issues are abated and TikTok reappears earlier than the 75 days is up stays to be seen—as does any deal Trump cuts within the meantime—however these exiled from their favorite video-sharing app are usually not fully with out choices. This week, hundreds of customers have flocked to a different Chinese language-owned social media platform, RedNote, leaving the app scrambling to rent English moderators, whereas additionally making an attempt to capitalize on its newfound success.
Meta, which owns Fb and Instagram, has additionally been doing its bit to take misplaced TikTokers underneath its wing, introducing a flurry of recent options, and even providing huge influencers as a lot as $5,000 to hitch its platforms.
