Americans began to resell smartphones with the TikTok application for thousands of dollars

Last week, TikTok briefly stopped operating in the US due to the new law. President Donald Trump delayed the platform ban for 75 days, but TikTok apps have already been removed from digital content stores and have not been republished to date. Against this background, used smartphones with TikTok installed have appeared on eBay, which are offered at inflated prices.

Image source: Nurphoto

Despite the fact that the decree to postpone the blocking of the social network was signed on Monday, TikTok applications have not returned to the official digital content stores Google Play and Apple App Store. However, their owners, Google and Apple, did not make any official statements regarding the timing of the re-publication of TikTok. This means that service users from the United States, if they delete the application or change their smartphone, will not be able to continue interacting with TikTok, since the application is simply not available for download from official sources. For bloggers, marketers and social media managers, this can pose a serious problem that needs to be addressed quickly.

Some users of the eBay platform are trying to profit from this problem. A quick search for “TikTok smartphone” brings up more than 9 thousand advertisements for the sale of used smartphones from Apple and Samsung with the TikTok application installed. It is obvious that the owners of these devices, instead of resetting them to factory settings, simply logged out of their accounts. Interestingly, used TikTok smartphones cost up to $50,000 using the Buy It Now option, but it’s hard to believe anyone would pay that much for the ability to interact with TikTok.

The authors of most of these offers on eBay offer to buy a smartphone with TikTok at a price from $2,000 to $5,000. It is difficult to say how much such devices are in demand, but if someone buys them, then most likely there are not many such people. Nevertheless, there is a certain interest in such smartphones, although it is difficult to say at what price they are sold. Most of the completed auctions for used smartphones from TikTok are closed with “best offer accepted”. Moreover, most often, overpriced devices are sold again after some time, and only devices whose cost is close to the market price are actually purchased by someone.