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Social media app TikTok briefly went dark in the U.S. last weekend due to a federal government tussle over its ownership. It’s since come back online, though the app itself cannot be downloaded from Google or Apple app stores.
That’s left some opportunistic eBay sellers to offer an alternative: If you don’t want to wait for the politics to settle, you can buy an iPhone with TikTok already installed for thousands of dollars.
According to United Press International (UPI), sellers are offering phones equipped with the software for anywhere from a few hundred to $35,000.
“Still has TikTok installed if that’s important to you,” reads one listing for an iPhone 14. “Can send a screen recording or something to prove it. Phones in good condition just some scratches but no cracks. All information and apps other than TikTok will be deleted so when you receive it will be like a new phone with TikTok preinstalled.”
That phone is priced at $3000 or the best offer; an iPhone 12 Pro Max is listed at a $5000 Buy It Now price but offers “free shipping.”
Listing or offering an item is not synonymous with actually selling it. At this point, it’s unclear whether the phones are finding legitimate buyers. Several listings are marked sold, though they note that the seller has accepted a best offer below the listed price. Others sell but are then quickly re-listed, indicating the buyer didn’t complete the transaction. Still, some content creators who deleted the app when the ban was looming and rely on it for income may be willing to pay a premium to have it available.
According to WIRED, buyers who acquire a used iPhone need to be careful not to sync it to their cloud backup as doing so might lead to the app being deleted. Further legal wrangling could also lead to the app going dark again, making the mark-up on the phone pointless.
A similar trend popped up in 2014 when the popular app game Flappy Bird was suddenly pulled from circulation. iPhones with the game already installed were offered on eBay at a significant mark-up.
TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has come under fire owing to national security concerns. A federal ban on the app went into effect before President Donald Trump’s incoming administration offered a 75-day reprieve. Trump has floated options to keep the app in circulation, including a full or partial sale to a US-based buyer. General Atlantic CEO Bill Ford, whose company invests in ByteDance, said this week that “it’s in everybody’s interest” to work out a deal.