If your iPhone runs TikTok, now might be the best time to sell it.

As Wired reports, eBay sellers are listing iPhones with the popular video-sharing app installed. Some are demanding as much as $50,000 for their "Pro Max" variants.

TikTok briefly went dark this month to comply with a law that required it to sell its business to one not controlled by a "foreign adversary." It was also removed from app stores that faced fines of $5,000 per violation for noncompliance.

The app returned about 12 hours later, ostensibly because President Trump promised to take action once he took office. However, TikTok and other ByteDance-owned apps are still not available in app stores. Apple and Google appear unwilling to risk hefty fines, despite a Trump executive order that instructs the Justice Department to ignore the law for 75 days.

So, if you deleted TikTok from your phone in the hours after it stopped working, it's not available to re-download. Now, a search on eBay for "phones with TikTok" currently shows more than 25,000 listings, with prices ranging from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars.

This route may seem iffy since you have to sign into iPhones or Android devices with a Google or Apple Account. The way around this, according to Wired, is to have the seller sign out of their iCloud or Google account on the phone but not factory reset the device. It's then up to the buyer to not sync the new phone to an existing cloud backup, which will erase TikTok.

Reports about the outrageous prices made the rounds on social media earlier this week. Submitted bids include $1,500 for a 256GB iPhone 15 Pro Max, though a brand-new iPhone 16 Pro Max starts at $1,199.

For now, signing into TikTok on the web is a cheaper solution. It's a clunkier experience; you navigate your feeds with the down arrows on your keyboard. But the TikTok debacle will likely get fixed in the coming weeks or months, so save your cash.

By: DocMemory
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