iPhone Duo pre-orders resell for up to $5,000 on eBay, about $1,800 over Apple's priceiPhone Duo pre-orders resell for up to $5,000 on eBay, about $1,800 over Apple's price

An iPhone Duo pre-order sold on eBay for $5,000 on 16 October, hours after Apple's own allocation ran out.

Pre-orders for Apple's first folding iPhone opened at 5am Pacific that Friday, and within minutes the US online store's delivery estimates had moved into 2027. By 8:30am Eastern, 9to5Mac found every configuration quoting 25 January, with some showing 29 January. The phone goes on sale on 23 October, but only the earliest orders arrive that day. Within the same morning, the orders that had gone through started appearing on eBay.

What iPhone Duo pre-orders are selling for on eBay

MacRumors reported two completed sales first spotted by Vadim Yuryev of the Max Tech YouTube channel: a 2TB model in Night Sky marked sold at $5,000, and a 1TB Night Sky listed as a confirmed pre-order that sold for $4,400. Dexerto went through eBay's sold listings for 16 October and found more across the range. Apple's US prices start at $1,999.

That puts the sold prices between about 35 and 90 per cent above Apple's. Asking prices run higher than what has sold: 9to5Mac counted dozens of listings, the highest asking $5,200. Apple has said nothing publicly about resale, and none of the coverage reports a per-customer limit on Duo orders.

What does an eBay buyer actually get?

In most cases, a place in someone else's order rather than a phone. Dexerto reports that some sellers posted screenshots of Apple order confirmations showing 23 October delivery, while others promised to post the phone or hand it over on launch day. It adds that the screenshots do not prove each sale was completed. Gadget Review notes that no source has set out what Apple allows when an order is passed to someone else.

eBay has rules for exactly this. Since August 2023 a presale listing must say it is a presale in both its title and description, state when the item will be available, and ship within 40 business days of purchase, as Value Added Resource reported when eBay made the change. An order due on 23 October fits easily. A sale made on 16 October against an order quoting 25 January does not: 40 business days from that Friday runs out around 11 December.

Our take

None of this is surprising once the supply side is in view. Pre-orders sold out in minutes, as we reported when Apple's store first quoted January, and the phone reached launch with unconfirmed reports of assembly yields near 60 per cent. A premium of $1,800 on a $3,199 phone is the clearest price signal yet of how far supply sits below demand, and it suggests $1,999 was nowhere near the ceiling of what early buyers would pay. None of that extra money reaches Apple.

It is also a thin market. A handful of completed sales on the first morning is not a going rate, and asking prices are not sales. Premiums like this are set by people who cannot wait, and we expect them to narrow as deliveries roll out and Apple Stores receive stock, though how quickly depends on the yields nobody outside Apple can see.

For a buyer the risk is lopsided. On many of these listings the extra $1,800 buys a screenshot and a promise, from a seller who does not yet have the phone either. Demand for Duo pre-orders has already been turned against buyers once, by a fake pre-order page that ran the DarkSword exploit, and a resale listing for an item nobody holds is an easy place for the next scam to hide. Paying that premium is not something APPDOOK can recommend. Anyone who must have one early is better off checking Apple's store and the Apple Store app for pickup slots on and after 23 October than paying a stranger for a place in the queue.

If you do buy on eBay, buy only a listing labelled as a presale with a stated dispatch date inside eBay's window, and pay through eBay rather than off-platform, so the purchase stays inside eBay's buyer protection if the phone never arrives.