Secondhand telephones with TikTok put in are being listed on eBay for 1000’s of {dollars}. And it seems that some folks would possibly truly be shopping for them.

Regardless of US president Donald Trump signing an executive order on Monday delaying any potential ban of the social media app for 75 days, TikTok stays absent from all US app shops—with Apple and Google giving no hints on whether or not it would return. Which means in case you are in America and delete the app or lose your cellphone, you’re presently locked out, with no technique to obtain it once more. For content material creators, model entrepreneurs, and social media managers, that might spell catastrophe. And an costly one at that.

Opportunistic eBayers have taken the prospect to money in on this misfortune. A fast seek for “TikTok cellphone” brings up greater than 9,000 listings of used smartphones from the likes of Apple and Samsung, all with the TikTok app already put in.

That is doable by the vendor merely signing out of the iCloud or Google account related to the system relatively than restoring the cellphone again to manufacturing unit settings. Any purchaser would then should be cautious to not sync to any current cloud backup they’ve, to keep away from dropping the app they’ve paid a lot to get, in addition to making certain any safety measures are eliminated by the vendor.

It goes with out saying that anybody contemplating this route should purchase with excessive warning, significantly given the asking value many sellers try to cost.

You could find telephones with TikTok listed for as a lot as $50,000 underneath eBay’s Purchase It Now promoting format, nevertheless it’s laborious to imagine anybody might actually assume their cellphone would promote for that—and there is no signal that they’ve.

There are various extra listed within the $2,000 to $5,000 vary, however as as to if anybody is definitely shopping for them at this value, it nonetheless appears unlikely.

What might be mentioned is that, despite the inflated costs, there is curiosity. These telephones are promoting, however for precisely how a lot is tougher to establish. Choose the “offered” filter on eBay’s search and there are many gross sales that seem like accomplished, however just about all of them have an undisclosed “finest supply accepted” word linked to them.

Any completed auctions with extremely inflated costs look to have had their gadgets relisted shortly after, suggesting an unsuccessful sale, with solely people who sit at near market worth for secondhand telephones seeking to have truly offered.

A fast look at auctions which might be presently operating additionally reveals these telephones are attracting far more cheap costs than an preliminary search would possibly counsel.

Whether or not the TikTok premium is actual is considerably unclear, then, however that is not stopping folks from attempting. Outcomes for the TikTok cellphone search time period went up by over 2,000 gadgets throughout the course of writing this text—a way of urgency little question pushed alongside by the very fact the app might be returned to US app shops at any time.

In the mean time, a TikTok search on both Apple’s App Retailer or the Google Play retailer is met with statements citing authorized necessities as the rationale the app just isn’t accessible. That is regardless of Trump’s govt order clearly instructing the Division of Justice to “take no motion to implement the Act or impose any penalties in opposition to any entity for any noncompliance with the Act.”

Whether or not issues are abated and TikTok reappears earlier than the 75 days is up stays to be seen—as does any deal Trump cuts within the meantime—however these exiled from their favorite video-sharing app will not be utterly with out choices. This week, thousands of users have flocked to a different Chinese language-owned social media platform, RedNote, leaving the app scrambling to hire English moderators, whereas additionally attempting to capitalize on its newfound success.

Meta, which owns Fb and Instagram, has additionally been doing its bit to take misplaced TikTokers underneath its wing, introducing a flurry of new features, and even providing huge influencers as a lot as $5,000 to join its platforms.