A new hot commodity on eBay: Phones with TikTok installed

TikTok offices in Culver City, California, March 13, 2024. (Mike Blake/Reuters/File via CNN Newsource)

With no way for users to download TikTok, thousands of eBay sellers have listed phones with the app installed — hoping to capitalize on TikTok’s disappearance from U.S. app stores following a brief ban.

TikTok was pulled from mobile app stores and briefly went dark on Saturday, the evening before the deadline for a federal law banning TikTok in the US unless it was sold to a company based in the U.S. or one of its allies. The app was back for existing users about 12 hours later, after President Donald Trump said he would sign an executive order delaying the ban — but it remains missing from app stores. So those who deleted or had never installed TikTok still cannot download the app.

With the timeline for TikTok’s app store return unclear, some enterprising individuals are taking advantage: thousands of eBay listings have popped up advertising phones with TikTok installed, as Wired first reported.

Many listings are in the range of hundreds to thousands of dollars, although some optimistic sellers are asking for a million or more. Some of these listings are marked sold, like this one for US$21,000 — but it’s unlikely the phone sold for anywhere near that price, as sellers can accept offers below the listing.

As of midday Thursday, searches for “TikTok phone” garnered more than 27,000 results on eBay.

TikTok, eBay, Apple, and Google did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

When will TikTok be available in app stores?

TikTok’s disappearance from app stores was not a shock, as experts predicted this would happen as soon as the ban took place. But what happens next is unclear.

The law banning TikTok requires only that its technology partners no longer make the app available, levying fines of up to $5,000 per person who has access to the platform. This includes Oracle, which hosts TikTok’s content in the United States, and Apple and Google, which host the app on their app stores.

Meanwhile, TikTok’s overall future in the United States is equally murky. The executive order, signed Monday evening, delays the enforcement of the TikTok ban for 75 days, but it does not provide a permanent solution.

For TikTok to continue to be available in the US, ByteDance must either sell to a US-based buyer, or the Trump administration will need to pass a new law to overturn the previous one. The latter is an unlikely scenario given the broad bipartisan support the current legislation received in Congress.

While ByteDance initially expressed no intentions to sell TikTok, it is now in active discussions about a deal, a board member told Axios.