Submitted 3 weeks ago by some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.404media.co/trump-mobile-phone-preorder-fail/
The website failed, went to an error page, and then charged my credit card the wrong amount of $64.70. I received a confirmation email saying I’ll receive a confirmation when my order has been shipped, but I haven’t provided a shipping address or paid the full $499 price tag. It is the worst experience I’ve ever faced buying a consumer electronic product and I have no idea whether or how I’ll receive the phone.
I look forward to learning more about how terrible these phones turn out.
Even as a ‘lets see what this grift is all about’…why the hell would anyone order this horseshit…beyond stupid.
Youtubers going for content.
Conceptually, it'll make one f of a collectors item one day there's no way enough will sell to make them common.
In much the same way the Confederate memorabilia is collectable.
As in, “You should avoid anyone who collects this shit. They’re probably a white nationalist.”
Yeah, I guarantee the people who collect it will also have a sizeable collection of nazi memorabilia too.
IDK about that, the Saudis have like a million units sitting in a warehouse somewhere.
To rip it apart on a software and hardware level to find the backdoors and spyware. We need to know how hardcore we are being spied on when the guy near us has one.
Most low cost phone resellers have no idea what software is even running on their phones. They just compile some samples from the manufacturers SDK, slap their own logo on top and ship it.
I’m positively surprised it’s supposed to come out with android 15. Barely one major version behind.
…because the author is an investigative journalist?
We all know it’s a scam, but it’s their job is to prove it. To prove it you have to (attempt to) buy it.
I agree any actual people trying to buy it are morons.
It seems a lot of people have forgotten that proper journalism is more than repeating what someone tweets
Journalism budget.
This person buying it might convince persuade others to not to buy it.
Journalism doing things the right way would try this out. You investigate one thing, learn about another, and inform.
Well hopefully he does a charge back on his card if he’s smart. I wouldn’t give his ass a dime.
For the same reason they put bandages on their ears: they’re fucking morons.
extremely non-zero chance the entire site and payment system was coded by morons with chatgpt
The preferred term is “vibe coding” nowadays!
At this point, his sons are just vibe scamming. Kind of surprised that they haven’t started a gun company yet. Truth rifles that literally blow up in his followers’ faces.
vibe coding sound way too cool for what it is
Clearly the wrong price; should be going for $86.47.
For those OOTL (like I was):
I don’t get it
86 is a term used in restaurants to tell the staff when a product is no longer available. 47 means the 47th president of the US
Americans say “86 [thing]” to mean “get rid of [thing]”
Let me guess. It’s a rebranded Chinese phone that typically goes for like 50 bucks?
But it’s golden and has a convicted felon’s name on it. That should make up for the rest of the value right?
cosmetically tweaked
It would have to be super tweaked considering the phone you referenced has four cameras, and a notch style front camera.
My bet is that this is a 10 second photoshop job and the actual phone will look nothing like that.
I mean if you do a difference blend of two of the cameras, you get a perfectly black circle (minus some blending at the edges): Image This means that the cameras are exact pixel-perfect copies of each other arranged in that order by photoshop. They don’t exist on any phone.
The Revvl is the cheapest phone T-Mobile offers last time I was in need of a replacement; they basically give it away free if you do 2 year contracts instead of normal month-to-month, contactless services.
The first thing that stood out to me is that the T from the phone logo in the thumbnail looks suspiciously similar to the T from T-Mobile. Like, almost identical to my untrained eye.
You can even buy a refurb for about $80, which is hilarious lol
And they’ll ironically lose the lawsuit about the lies and deception of this, the defense of which will be funded by donations from the idiots that buy this phone and receive messages every hour asking for more money for the legal defense fund.
well i'm definitely shocked that the guy banned from operating a charity in new york because he scammed children with cancer would operate a shoddy business.
Usually he’s not even involved in running the business, they’re licensing deals where some scammer pays a few million up front to use the Trump name, which is then used to scam his followers.
With a track record like that, he’s the first person I would trust. /s
Unfortunately true. Worth reading that snopes article just to see how much fucked up stuff was actually happening though. It’s not a mischaracterization to say they stole from kids with cancer through self dealing.
Psst… you’re sarcasm is showing
Bumblebee tuna
I look forward to learning more about how terrible these phones turn out.
It will be a bog standard white label china phone with android, a custom wallpaper and maybe some cover/protector like you can get on temu. It’s not like they develop their own hardware configuration, apps or phone os.
But the world’s best professional bullshitter wrote on Truth that it’s built in the USA, it’s not a China phone
Which American companies actually manufacture displays, ram, CPUs, batteries etc. for cellphones in America?
The US is a failed state. There’s no other way to put it.
Failing, not failed. Don’t give up! Things could get a lot worse, we’re nowhere near the bottom. They could also get better.
Pessimist: It’s all terrible.
Optomist: But it might be even more terrible tomorrow!
It’s not for lack of a better term. It’s just accurate.
Can’t say I feel bad for you buddy. Count yourself lucky if your cc info isn’t abused.
You are literally dealing with known felons.
It’s a 404 Media journalist, he did it on purpose to point out how stupid it is.
There’s a very high probability that the company will shut down before they even get a working product. All the pre-order money will have been spent on “research” and “salaries”, with 80% going directly into Trump’s pockets. And there will be fuck all anyone can do to get their money back. Scammers gonna scam.
I sometimes wish I had no moral code. This demographic is super easy to scam. Like the guy who listed the non-woke beer or the people who listed the freedumb phone, etc. Just attach some bullshit marketing to a thing and stupid people eat it up.
OP sounds like this is a B2B gone wrong… the 67.47$ is what they pay the factory. For the consumer this should be 499$
I’m confident it’s simply going to be a white label of some Chinese brand.
Only question is which one.
Also there are tons of similar mvno networks, so that part is fine.
I bet the business address is that same as the one for his Trump watches, gold sneakers, and some “male enhancement honey” that you’d have to be very hard up well, desperate to try.
Plot twist: there are no phones, the whole thing is a scheme to rip off people for $64.70. Enough money to make the scam worth it, not enough for people to put in the time and effort to reclaim their money unless their credit card will compensate them.
I mean, it’s literally just a rebranded CP12, it’s a $50 phone that’s been painted gold.
That’s not a twist at all…
It’s like that Trump watch with the T missing. “I was expecting something with the integrity of the President”. Yeah, you got that.
Never ceases to embarrass this nation
There is hidden significance and symbolism throughout the device for those dedicated trumpies to uncover. For example, one easter egg is that the length of the screen is exactly 4x the length of trump’s dick.
Imagine if earlier fascists were as corrupt with conflicts of interests. Maybe we could call via the Adolfone.
well, hope this spreads quickly as a lesson to everyone avoid that crap!
Fun fact, the alt right released a “Freedom Phone” after the jan 6 insurrection at the US capitol.
Spoilers: The phone was just brought from some no-brand Chinese company and then rebranded and sold for more. The “Freedom” is just called sideloading, which a Google Android phone could already do. And the CEO claim to have “build the OS” all by himself…
Like… some rich Millionaire trust fund kid with zero experience writing an entire android fork all by himself? 🤔
Its probably just spyware so the far right can monitor their cult followers. Once their leaders get into power, they’ll just get purged like the brownshirts.
Lol, did whoever set to the shop configure it in Australian dollars? 100 AUD are just about 65 USD. Given the currency fluctuation, that could just about work out.
Of course the phone is gold. Does it come with a stylus shaped like a golf club and diaper as well? Or are those extra?
These are gonna be worse than the DethKlok phone, and that thing has spikes that stabbed your face when you used it.
Is this one of the ways that Palantir plans to do mass surveillance? I would not be surprised.
On the upside, its good to see the Fam wasting grift money on business that are doomed to fail.
Con-nection error, I assume.
We’re so gilded ugh
That’s an impressive amount of optimism you have there. My guess is, you can kiss that money goodbye, but I hope everything somehow works out anyway.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Daily reminder, Jimmy Carter willingly sold his peanut farm because his morality told him of his own viewpoints that it may be seen as unfair for a President to own business interests while serving the most important role of government. Which in his mind may come off as corrupt.
We now have a president who see’s his name as a brand. That’s where we’ve gone.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
People are forgetting too that this is just a job that he can be fired from. The SCOTUS and Republicans can fire him at any moment, but they aren’t. These middle managers suck.
residentmarchant@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
They’re complicit. You don’t fire a boss because some people don’t like them, you fire a boss when you don’t like them.
What a state of affairs we’re in…
MnemonicBump@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
FTFY
grue@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Well, that and he was complying with the Emoluments Clause. You know, that thing that should’ve seen Trump impeached on Inauguration Day – 2017, not 2025!
Ulrich@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
It’s much worse than that, he’s actively exploiting his position in government for personal gain. They have a gold Trump credit card that advertises that it’s “an official website of the US government”.
CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Worse than that, he’s hosting $1M a plate dinners for “access” and attendees get things like pardons for their family members or government approval of business deals after paying these bribes.
cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
and that's why president carter was the last great and decent president the us has had.
RejZoR@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
And it would just be Jimmy’s Peanuts in the end. Nothing more, nothing less. Opposed to this cheap gold platted shit Trump keeps trying to sell…