The ever-popular TikTok finds itself in a unique position right now—caught in a kind of limbo.
While it's not officially banned, having been granted an extension to secure an American buyer during the Donald Trump administration, the app is no longer for download for users of iOS and Android in the U.S. due to the ongoing legal concerns.
And business minded people who know what this means, they started selling their iPhones for exorbitant prices.
On eBay, there are thousands of listings offering smartphones that already come pre-loaded with TikTok.
These listings feature a wide range of devices, catering to various preferences in terms of make, model, and carrier.
For example, mid-range smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy A54 5G on Consumer Cellular, TikTok pre-installed, is on sale for $250. A T-Mobile-compatible iPhone 11 Pro Max, is available for $450.
Things go up from there.
For example, one seller listed an iPhone 8 Plus "with TikTok" for $1,200. An iPhone 14, for example, is priced at at and eyewatering $7,500, with one potential buyer already holding it in their cart.
Some of the more outrageous listings are asking for tens of thousands of dollars, including one iPhone 16 Pro Max with a terabyte of storage that is listed for a staggering $50,000 (with the "best offer" option, though shipping charges are still added—somewhat ironically).
The most outrageous would be one optimistic seller listing an iPhone 15 with TikTok and CapCut, a video editing app with the same Chinese parent company as TikTok, for a ridiculous $4.9 million.
Despite a long list of “watchers” apparently interested on these phones, it’s not clear just how many of the high-dollar TikTok-enabled devices are selling.
One iPhone 15 "with TikTok" was reportedly sold for just $465 after an 85-bid contest. Then, another iPhone 15 was sold after two bids for a price of $3,100.
It's worth noting that despite the listings garner significant attention—many listings have thousands of views within a 24-hour period—the majority of transactions involve negotiations and not full-price sales.
The "completed sales" filter on eBay shows that many sellers have accepted lower offers than their listed price.
Yet, there are still some who’ve managed to capitalize on this odd trend. For example, one listing for an iPhone 16 Pro Max reportedly sold for its full $12,999 asking price, though the seller has no transaction history on the platform, casting doubt on the legitimacy of the sale.
The idea of banning TikTok or imposing stricter regulations on the app in the U.S. gained significant traction during Joe Biden's presidency, though it was initially proposed under the Trump administration.
During Biden's tenure, the administration continued to express concerns about national security risks due to the app's ownership by ByteDance, a Chinese company. The key figure behind this push in the Biden administration has been Senator Mark Warner, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who has advocated for action on TikTok's data privacy and security issues.
Biden’s government has taken a more nuanced approach, focusing on potential regulatory actions rather than outright banning the app.
However, discussions around TikTok's threat to American data security have remained a central issue in U.S.-China relations, with some lawmakers calling for outright bans or additional measures to protect American users.
Before Biden, Trump once revealed a plan to ban TikTok from operating in the U.S. during his first term in office in April 2020, but now, he's trying to save it, if the company can find a buyer.
In a statement shared hours after he was sworn in, he announced that postponing the ban would give his administration the chance to protect national security "while avoiding an abrupt shutdown of a communications platform used by millions of Americans."
The law, formally titled The Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act "regulates “foreign adversary controlled applications,” specifically those operated by TikTok and any other subsidiary of its China-based parent company, ByteDance Ltd., on national security grounds."
A similar phenomena occurred years ago with Flappy Bird, the viral mobile game.
When the creator decided to pull it from app stores, phones with the game pre-installed were resold on eBay for absurd prices—one even reached a winning bid of $99,900. Ultimately, eBay canceled the sale, as the platform mandates that all phones sold must be wiped and restored to factory settings before shipment.
At this time, that rule still applies, meaning that any TikTok-laden phones currently being sold must also comply with the factory reset policy.