iPhone X pre-orders are being scalped on eBay for $1,500, on average

Demand for the iPhone X has been “off the charts,” according to Apple, which led to the new device selling out in a matter of minutes. Well, that and the limited quantities available at launch. According to several reports, ship times dropped from two to three weeks for all models to up to five weeks only 10 minutes after pre-orders opened up. Because of the scarcity of the hotly anticipated device, sellers have been scalping their pre-order confirmations on eBay, hoping to cash in on consumer demand.

According to the latest figures from eBay, there were more than 1,200 listings posted on its site within 45 minutes of the pre-sales opening at 12 midnight PT today.

We ran an “iPhone X” search now, and found more than 4,480 live listings, the majority being “Buy It Now” offers instead of auctions.

eBay also tracked a big spike in “iPhone X” searches on its site.

From midnight until 1 PM ET, there were 36,555 searches for iPhone X, the company tells us.

While it’s too soon to say what the average selling price is — that will require more sales data over a longer period of time to be accurate — eBay says most of the listings appear to be in the $1,500 price range.

For comparison’s sake, the iPhone X starts at $999 for the 64GB model, and goes up to $1,149 for the 256GB model — so there’s definitely a mark-up in place. (The $1,500 price range appears to apply to the 64GB iPhone X, from what we’re seeing.)

And let’s not forget that some people have posted their iPhone X pre-order confirmations for sale at prices that can only be chalked up to “wishful thinking” — like tens of thousands of dollars or more.