iPhone X handsets offered for extortionate prices via auction site

Monday, November 6, 2017 - 11:51 by Mike Price

The iPhone X goes on sale in the UK this week, with Apple’s flagship handset costing £999 in its most basic form. But with the pre-orders selling out in 10 minutes, thousands of mobile lovers are already set to be disappointed due to the limited availability of this device.

The Sun reports that some unscrupulous individuals are making use of eBay to try and sell their iPhone X at prices much higher than that set by Apple itself. The most expensive example currently on the site is sitting with an instant buy price of just under £46,000 while a number of UK sellers have put prices of between £3,000 and £10,000 on their as yet undelivered handsets.

eBay is a great place to buy a wide range of used and new items via safe shopping online, with the retailer making a recent marketing push to remind consumers that it is the home of hundreds of thousands of unique listings. But this story highlights some of the issues with its platform, which can lead to exploitative behaviour because of its open-ended nature.

Of course whether or not there will be people willing to pay the sky high prices being asked for the iPhone X is another matter, as anyone who is patient enough to wait a week or two for the hype surrounding the device to die down could save themselves a lot of money.

Apple is partly to blame for this issue, because it has fallen short of its manufacturing targets for the iPhone X and is unlikely to be able to meet demand globally in the next year. Meanwhile there will be lots of other networks and retailers offering the phone for sale via safe shopping online without the exorbitant price tag attached.