Apple iPhones with Fortnite installed pop up on eBay for $18,000

Your old phone could now be worth more than 20 times what you thought – if you happened to download one particular free app.

Gamers who downloaded Fortnite on to their iPhones before the app was pulled from the App Store are now looking to cash in by selling the devices at a premium on the second-hand market.

Fortnite was pulled from the App Store last week after developer Epic Games added a direct payment option that circumvented the 30 per cent cut it would have to otherwise pay Apple, violating store policies.

The app was a free download but had in-app purchases, which are supposed to use Apple’s payment platform within the App Store.

Now those who already downloaded Fortnite onto their iPhone before it was pulled from the App Store (and Android’s Play Store) are now looking to cash in.

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One listing has attracted dozens of bids.

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One seller has attracted more than 40 bids for their used 256GB iPhone X from 2017, which is now sitting at over $18,000 with more than five days to go in the online auction.

Five different buyers have placed bids on the phone, which started its week-long auction at $199 on Wednesday afternoon.

Someone matched that bid around four-and-a-half hours later, before they were then outbid on Thursday afternoon, leading to a bidding war that stretched into the night.

By early Friday morning the auction had attracted bids over $18,000.

A 256GB iPhone X on the second-hand market would usually be lucky to fetch around $800.

An iPhone XR would usually fetch a few hundreds dollars without the freshly banned app installed.

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It’s one of dozens of iPhones with Fortnite installed looking to attract a hefty price tag on eBay in Australia, and one of hundreds around the world.

Many of the sellers though seem like hopeful prospectors as several listings with auction prices starting in the thousands are yet to attract a single bid.

Others have only one or two.

The phenomenon seems restricted to iPhones, likely due to the way Android allows you to install apps from places other than the Google Play store.

But it isn’t the first time this happened.

I am sorry 'Flappy Bird' users, 22 hours from now, I will take 'Flappy Bird' down. I cannot take this anymore.

— Dong Nguyen (@dongatory) February 8, 2014

The developer said the app ‘ruined’ his life. Picture: Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP

When Dong Nguyen, the creator of the insidiously addictive mobile game Flappy Bird pulled up stumps in 2014, phones with the app already installed began commanding huge sums on auction sites.

And in 2014, Apple discontinued the iPod Classic, a 160GB music player that allowed you to take virtually your entire music library with you.

The iPod Classic now seems decidedly low-tech.

Now you can pretty much stream every song ever made at your whim, but at the time some music lovers were mildly panicked.

Some iPod Classic owners spied opportunity, listing their iPods for sale on eBay at inflated rates, while other opportunists headed to the shops with their sights set on procuring all the iPods left locked in the backroom of retailers around the country with a plan to immediately sell them on.