The world’s first OnePlus 2 invite is going for $1,000 on eBay
OnePlus has started promising up the world’s first batch of OnePlus 2 invites. They’re auctioning them off through eBay! It sounds tacky at first, I know, but all proceeds of the auction are headed for a good cause, namely UNICEF’s Tap Project that helps bring healthy water to underprivileged children in countries where fresh water supply is limited.
The company actually did the same thing last year (albeit a bit after general invites were already issued) so it’s not a new trend for them. Here’s their explanation as to why they’ve decided to hold the auction a bit sooner this time around:
From past experiences, we’ve seen some people selling their OnePlus invites on third-party websites. While this is technically not violating any rules, we don’t think that it is very fair to our fans or in the spirit of what we’re trying to create. If we can’t beat them, we thought, let’s join them. This way, those who are willing to buy invites can bid on one officially from OnePlus instead of someone looking to make a profit, and 100% of the auction proceeds will go towards a great cause.
100 invites are being dished out in all, with the first 50 having gone up for auction today and another 50 going up tomorrow. We were curious to see what the invite stamped “#1” was going for, and sure enough it’s leading the pack at 57 bids for $1,000 right now. We’re not sure if having the #1 invite means much more than having invite #50, but someone cares enough to make sure they get it.
Other invite auctions vary from as high as $631 to a low of $225.50. OnePlus says all invites will be delivered August 10th following the closure of all the auctions, and that users will have a full week to buy the phone (it’s for the 64GB Sandstone Black model) as opposed to the usual one or two days you’d have for a normal invite.
And that’s that. Nothing special for having these particular invites aside from the good feeling you’ll get when you realize you’re helping a poor soul the world over.
[via OnePlus]