eBay sellers are selling used phones with TikTok pre-installed for thousands of dollars

Second hand phones with TikTok installed ones are listed on eBay for thousands of dollars. And it seems some people are actually buying them.

Although US President Donald Trump signed executive order on Monday delaying any potential ban on the social media app for 75 days, TikTok remains absent from all US app stores — with Apple and Google giving no indication whether it will return. This means that if you’re in America and you delete the app or lose your phone, you’re currently locked out without being able to re-download it. For content creators, brand marketers and social media managers, this can spell disaster. And an expensive one at that.

Opportunistic eBayers jumped at the chance to profit from this misfortune. A quick search for “TikTok Phone” brings up more than 9,000 used listings smartphones from companies like Apple and Samsung, all with the TikTok app already installed.

This is possible by having the seller sign out of the iCloud or Google account associated with the device, rather than wiping the phone back to factory settings. Any buyer will then have to be careful not to sync to an existing cloud backup to avoid losing the app they paid so much for.

Some of these phones are listed for as much 50,000 dollars in the form of an eBay Buy Now sale, but it’s hard to believe that anyone could actually think their phone would sell for that – and there’s no sign that it will.

There are many others listed in the $2,000 to $5,000 range, but whether anyone actually buys them at that price still seems unlikely.

What can be said is that despite the inflated prices, there are is interest. These phones are sell, but for exactly how much is more difficult to ascertain. Select the “sold” filter in the eBay search and there are many sales that appear to be complete, but almost all have an undisclosed “best offer accepted” note attached to them.

All completed auctions with wildly inflated prices appear to be relisted soon after, suggesting a failed sale, with only those near market value for used phones appearing to have actually sold.

A quick look at the auctions currently taking place also shows much more reasonable prices than an initial search might suggest.

The true impact of any TikTok premium is a bit unclear then, but that doesn’t stop people from trying. Results for the phone search term TikTok have climbed over 2,000 items at the time of writing – a sense of urgency no doubt fueled by the fact that the app could be returned to the app stores at any time.

Currently, searching for TikTok in both app stores has been met with statements from Google and Apple citing legal requirements as the reason the app is not available in their stores. This comes despite Trump’s executive order, which clearly instructs the Justice Department to “not take any enforcement action or impose any sanctions against any entity for failure to comply with the law.”

It remains to be seen whether TikTok will re-emerge before the 75 days are up — and so will any deal Trump makes in the interim — but those in exile aren’t completely without options. this week thousands of users flocked to another Chinese-owned social media platform, RedNote, leaving the app to struggle hire English moderators.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, is also doing its part to take lost TikTokers under its wing by introducing a wave of new familiar features and even pitching to major influencers $5000 to join its platforms.