People Are Selling Old Phones With TikTok Installed for Thousands of Dollars — Here's Why

TikTok only went dark for half a day earlier returning for U.S. users aft President Trump called for a 75-day suspension of the ban.

But while the institution and its suitors (from Kevin O'Leary to Elon Musk to an AI company) effort to activity thing out, successful pursuing the law, the short video societal media level is not yet back successful app stores.

This intends TikTokers, who either deleted the app beforehand aliases bought a caller telephone since then, are going acold turkey (or utilizing the desktop version). And respective forward-thinking entrepreneurs thought possibly they could make a buck.

The New York Times recovered immoderate "unlocked pinch TikTok" listings for thousands—even tens of thousands connected resale sites including Poshmark and eBay.

One eBay listing says "iPhone 14 Pro UNLOCKED! W/ TikTok" and is priced astatine $3,000. (Unlocked iPhone 14s are presently astatine Walmart and Best Buy for astir $300 to $500.)

Poshmark, meanwhile, has an iPhone 13 Pro Max "with TikTok and Capcut" for $3,500.

Some listings are most apt a joke for illustration this "cracked" iPhone connected Facebook Marketplace pinch "TikTok ne'er deleted" for $10,000 (down from its original $30,000).

Still, if anyone is buying the phones astatine these prices, they're not admitting it—yet. If you've purchased one, please scope out. In the meantime, a caller iPhone 16 (without TikTok) starts astatine $799.

Related: Is TikTok Considering Selling Its U.S. Business to Elon Musk? Here's What TikTok Says.