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.

  • neidu3@sh.itjust.works
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    Imagine if earlier fascists were as corrupt with conflicts of interests. Maybe we could call via the Adolfone.

  • RadioFreeArabia@lemmy.world
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    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.

    • Tiger@sh.itjust.works
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      Failing, not failed. Don’t give up! Things could get a lot worse, we’re nowhere near the bottom. They could also get better.

      • YerLam@lemmy.world
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        Pessimist: It’s all terrible.
        Optimist: But it might be even more terrible tomorrow!

    • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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      Very plausibly what started as a FBI monitoring tool which no longer has any staff with knowledge of the program anymore.

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    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.

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    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.

    • Ulrich@feddit.org
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      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”.

    • RejZoR@lemmy.ml
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      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…

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      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.

      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 even just 2025!

    • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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      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.

  • MBech@feddit.dk
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    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.

  • katy ✨@piefed.blahaj.zone
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    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.

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    Even as a ‘lets see what this grift is all about’…why the hell would anyone order this horseshit…beyond stupid.

    • rumba@piefed.zip
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      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.

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        In much the same way that Confederate memorabilia is collectable.

        As in, “You should avoid anyone who collects this shit. They’re probably a white nationalist.”

        • rumba@piefed.zip
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          Not where I was going for that, more like museum pieces. He’s really done a bunch of shit we absolutely should NOT have allowed. A president, releasing a phone, while in office for a grift. Our great grandkids (hopefully) will be walking through the Smithsonian going what the FUCK was going on in the 20’s, and one of these e-waste POS will be sitting there staring back at them.

        • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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          Or you can spray paint your old iPhone with gold coloring, slap a Trump logo on it and sell it on ebay to some unsuspecting MAGA fan for $2,000.

          It’s not hard to copy Trump’s signature … you could throw that on the phone and charge $5,000 and tell everyone that you bought it at a MAGA rally where Trump signed it in 2024.

          If they can grift … we can all grift harder

          • Notyou@sopuli.xyz
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            He did gut any dept of gov that would go after grifters or hold them accountable.

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              Something tells me that won’t stop someone from getting in trouble for misusing his name. Straight to deportation with you!

            • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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              In that case, someone should come out with a quality phone and just slap Trump logos all over the damned thing and charge $2,000 for a $500 phone. Run the business until someone tells you to stop.

              Sell Trump crap … it’s all crap anyway … make money on it if people are dumb enough to pay for this shit.

      • Geodad@lemmy.world
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        Yeah, I guarantee the people who collect it will also have a sizeable collection of nazi memorabilia too.

    • MimicJar@lemmy.world
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      …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.

      • vaionko@sopuli.xyz
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        It seems a lot of people have forgotten that proper journalism is more than repeating what someone tweets

    • PunnyName@lemmy.world
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      Journalism doing things the right way would try this out. You investigate one thing, learn about another, and inform.

    • ThePantser@sh.itjust.works
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      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.

      • deafboy@lemmy.world
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        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.

    • IllNess@infosec.pub
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      Journalism budget.

      This person buying it might convince persuade others to not to buy it.

    • dai@lemmy.world
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      www.404media.co I Tried Pre-Ordering the Trump Phone. The Page Failed and It Charged My Credit Card the Wrong Amount Joseph Cox 4 - 5 minutes

      On Monday the Trump Organization announced its own mobile service plan and the “T1 Phone,” a customized all-gold mobile phone that its creators say will be made in America.

      I tried to pre-order the phone and pay the $100 downpayment, hoping to test the phone to see what apps come pre-installed, how secure it really is, and what components it includes when it comes out. 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.

      “Trump Mobile is going to change the game, we’re building on the movement to put America first, and we will deliver the highest levels of quality and service. Our company is based right here in the United States because we know it’s what our customers want and deserve,” Donald Trump Jr., EVP of the Trump Organization, and obviously one of President Trump’s sons, said in a press release announcing Trump Mobile.

      The announcement describes the T1 Phone as a “sleek, gold smartphone engineered for performance and proudly designed and built in the United States for customers who expect the best from their mobile carrier.”

      💡

      Do you know anything else about this phone? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at [email protected].

      On the Benny Show podcast Trump Jr. said the phone is for people who want a phone made in America that without the potential of a “backdoor made into the hardware that some of our adversaries may have installed in there.” Trump Jr. also said call centers for Trump Mobile will be in St. Louis, “so we’re keeping our data on shore.”

      Various phone companies and projects have pushed the “made in America” aspect of their phones. One is the Liberty Phone from Purism. Building a device in America or ensuring the integrity of a phone’s supply chain can be exceptionally difficult for a smaller company, because many components may be made in China or other countries even if the device itself is assembled in the U.S. And ultimately, a company with no telecom or hardware experience selling a device like the T1 Phone is probably not going to have the expertise to build a more secure device than, say, Apple or Google with its own Pixel devices, which have massive teams updating the hardware and operating system and constantly hunting for threats against their devices and users.

      The mobile carrier part of Trump Mobile appears to be a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), which is essentially a carrier that piggybacks off the technical infrastructure of the country’s other fully-fledged carriers like T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon. The Trump Organization’s announcement says that “Trump Mobile will offer 5G service through all three major cellular carriers.”

      The Trump family and organization continue to make lucrative deals based on the Trump name while President Trump is in power. Bloomberg found that since Trump’s reelection campaign, the name has powered more than $10 billion of real estate projects, $500 million in sales from one of his crypto ventures, and millions from stakes in other companies.

      The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

      After maybe pre-ordering my T1 Phone, the confirmation email said I could log into TrumpMobile.com to make changes to my account. I did that, changed my password as prompted, and then hit another error page. I have not been able to log into the site.

      About the author

      Joseph is an award-winning investigative journalist focused on generating impact. His work has triggered hundreds of millions of dollars worth of fines, shut down tech companies, and much more.

      Joseph Cox