{"id":521394,"date":"2026-03-13T15:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T15:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/521394\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T15:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T15:44:09","slug":"psa-dont-buy-a-4400-gray-market-samsung-trifold-on-ebay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/521394\/","title":{"rendered":"PSA: Don\u2019t buy a $4,400 gray market Samsung TriFold on eBay"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had to buy Samsung\u2019s Galaxy Z TriFold<\/a> from eBay for $4,399 and I\u2019m pretty sure that\u2019s because Samsung doesn\u2019t want anyone to actually have this phone. I\u2019m also afraid to turn it on.<\/p>\n

Not that turning it on does much good. Whenever I tap \u201cstart\u201d to set it up, a prompt to supply a \u201cUSIM\u201d pops up and refuses to let me progress without one. I do not trust this phone enough to put a SIM card in it. The phone continues to want a SIM. We are at an impasse.<\/p>\n

In theory, Samsung\u2019s ambitious TriFold has been on sale in the US since January 30th<\/a> (retail price: $2,899), but it has been damn near impossible to get one. For any other phone launch we would typically use a review unit on loan from the manufacturer; Samsung PR did not provide a TriFold review unit to The Verge. We resigned to buying our own, but the phone was out of stock within minutes of going on sale the first time.<\/p>\n

Weeks went by \u2014 weeks in which I asked Samsung\u2019s PR in vain if they were absolutely sure they didn\u2019t have one I could borrow \u2014 and the TriFold remained stubbornly out of stock. I called retail stores; they didn\u2019t have any to sell me. The phone went back in stock briefly in February<\/a>, but once again, it sold out before we could get all of the corporate credit card details punched in. Truly, how many of these nearly $3,000 phones is Samsung selling in a matter of minutes? I strongly suspect not very many, and the scarcity effect is a feature of offering just a handful of phones at a time, not a bug.<\/p>\n

Truly, how many of these nearly $3,000 phones is Samsung selling in a matter of minutes? I strongly suspect not very many<\/p>\n

In desperation, we turned to eBay. Sifting through the sellers without ratings, who somehow wanted to turn around and sell a very expensive phone they just bought for very little profit, we landed on Moderntek. The seller had lots of positive ratings and seemingly a bunch of TriFolds to sell for a cool $4,399 each. (We\u2019re not recommending you buy it here, let alone at all.) It\u2019s worth noting that while the TriFold has been on sale longer in other parts of the world, they\u2019re not, like, abundant anywhere else right now. It\u2019s also listed as out of stock on Samsung\u2019s Korean, Chinese, and Taiwanese websites.<\/p>\n

We were promised the phone would arrive in early March; early March came and we discovered it hadn\u2019t even shipped yet. The seller responded quickly to our questions with a confusing message about logistics issues and orders being overlooked. Suddenly, it was slated to arrive within a couple of days \u2014 shipping from Scottsdale, Arizona, not Hong Kong, as the original tracking number indicated.<\/p>\n

The package arrived on Monday without any fanfare \u2014 just a retail box inside a FedEx bubble mailer. Covering the seam on one side of the box were two seals \u2014 one in Chinese and a white one on top in English. I\u2019d never seen this kind of label on a phone shipped by the manufacturer. It read: \u201cDO NOT ACCEPT IF SEAL IS BROKEN.\u201d Underneath the sticker, the paper of the box was bubbling. Big \u201cmy anti-tamper seal has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my anti-tamper seal\u201d energy.<\/p>\n

I cut both seals and opened the box. There it was: the TriFold I\u2019d been so eager to get my hands on. The protective film on the inner screen peeled away easily, and I could see why: bits of hair and crumbs lined the adhesive. I\u2019m pretty sure Samsung doesn\u2019t send phones from the factory like that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Concerning!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kinda gross!<\/p>\n

There was another unpleasant surprise waiting for me: When I powered the phone on, it was already set up. On top of that, an app I didn\u2019t recognize prompted a pop-up almost immediately, asking for a long list of sketchy permissions. I hit deny and factory reset the phone. The phone obliged, but now insists that I need a SIM to continue with setup. I can\u2019t find a way to bypass this requirement, and I\u2019ve set up loads of Android phones without a physical SIM. I don\u2019t even have one at the moment anyway (thanks a bunch, eSIM).<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s where I am. Do I have a $4,400 phone riddled with malware? My interactions with the seller and some quick Googling<\/a> suggest it\u2019s not some kind of sophisticated phishing scheme \u2014 more likely it\u2019s just some regular ol\u2019 eBay bait-and-switch shenanigans, possibly to hook us for a pricey restocking fee. I\u2019ve asked Samsung to confirm some details about the model I was shipped; I haven\u2019t gotten any answers from them.<\/p>\n

This whole cursed endeavor has led me to a single conclusion: Samsung doesn\u2019t actually want to sell TriFolds. If it did, then the company would simply make more of them and sell them. No, Samsung wants us to want a TriFold. The TriFold is aspirational. It makes the $2,000 Z Fold 7<\/a> with a single hinge look like a hell of a deal. That is its job; if this phone\u2019s job was to actually exist, then it would. If this were some paradigm-shifting technological achievement, it would be in the hands of every tech reviewer in the country \u2014 not a handful of mostly influencers. In the meantime, I\u2019ve got a very expensive paperweight on my desk and a \u201cMoney Back Guarantee\u201d request to file with eBay.<\/p>\n

Photography by Allison Johnson \/ The Verge<\/p>\n

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See All Tech<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I had to buy Samsung\u2019s Galaxy Z TriFold from eBay for $4,399 and I\u2019m pretty sure that\u2019s because…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6563,166,165,170,172,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-521394","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-foldable-phones","9":"tag-gadgets","10":"tag-mobile","11":"tag-samsung","12":"tag-tech","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}