Flappy Bird

An iPhone with the game Flappy Bird installed that was being sold on EBay has been removed by the auction site, the phone's seller says. (EBay / February 10, 2014)

The seller of an Apple iPhone 5s that came with popular mobile game Flappy Bird installed claims EBay took down the sale of the device.

The device had gained 74 bids and was listed at $99,900. The item still had six days left before the auction closed, but it was removed around mid-day Monday.

"EBay took it down. They said that you can't sell phones with apps. Which doesn't make sense to me because every iPhone has apps and they sell millions of them on EBay," Vasil Kiniv, the seller of the device, told The Times in a message.

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Kiniv said he had to call Ebay to figure out why the iPhone had been taken down. He said different Ebay representatives gave him different reasons for the sale's removal.

"They didn't really make sense on exactly why they removed it," he said. "Kept changing their reason. First it was because they don't approve of the item yet because it's so new that they don't know if it should sell for that much. And then they said that it was violating Apple terms."

Another user who was selling a smartphone with Flappy Bird installed claims EBay also removed his item. The seller, whose name is David Syrett, said he received an email from the company explaining why his device was removed.

"Smartphones and tablets must be restored to factory settings before they are allowed to be sold on EBay," the email said. "Please remove all content from your device, including the game Flappy Bird, before you attempt to list your item again."

Syrett's device was a 16-gigabyte iPhone 5. He listed it with a starting price of $2,499 and said it was viewed six times before EBay removed it.

A third iPhone that had received a high bid of $98,100 also appears to have been removed.

Users began selling devices with Flappy Bird installed after the developer of the game suddenly removed it from both the Apple App Store and Google Play this weekend. Before being removed, Flappy Bird was listed as the top free game on both app stores.

We asked EBay for comment.


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