I Tried Pre-Ordering the Trump Phone. The Page Failed and It Charged My Credit Card the Wrong Amount
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The post link was a failure, too, being locked behind a paywall and it blocks reader mode. Fuck this entire article.
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 minutesOn 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 joseph@404media.co.
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
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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.
extremely non-zero chance the entire site and payment system was coded by morons with chatgpt
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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.
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...
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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?
Edit: Looked the specs. It has a headphone jack and expandable memory. How can Trump get that right and most phone manufacturers can't?
Because it's almost certainly an old, low spec device that they've bought a job lot of on clearance.
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Weird. Mussolini’s greatest achievement was at a gas station.
Deep cut
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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."
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.
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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.
And they prolly didn't measure it diagonally either. Only straight. As God intended or something.
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Yeah, I guarantee the people who collect it will also have a sizeable collection of nazi memorabilia too.
Def seems to be a crossover between the two.
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Yep, apparently it's a cosmetically tweaked Wingtech REVVL 7 Pro 5G, which goes for $170 under the T-Mobile brand on Amazon.
Eric Trump admitted it was going to be made in China, so the press release's description, "designed and built in the United States," is just a lie, or actually two lies.
'Eventually': Eric Trump admits new mobile phone isn't being made in the USA
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.
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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!
Sounds like an easy way out of this hell hole.
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The Escobar Phone is a weird name for a vape
I think they're called elfbars or something?
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These are gonna be worse than the DethKlok phone, and that thing has spikes that stab your face when you use it.
Fucking solid reference
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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.
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Yeah, I guarantee the people who collect it will also have a sizeable collection of nazi memorabilia too.
And claim they're just history buffs
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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.
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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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.
and that's why president carter was the last great and decent president the us has had.
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Clearly the wrong price; should be going for $86.47.
For those OOTL (like I was):
What to Know About James Comey’s Instagram ‘Threat’ Against Trump
The Trump Administration is investigating the former FBI director for posting a photo of seashells that spelled “86 47.”
TIME (time.com)
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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.
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".
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Yep, apparently it's a cosmetically tweaked Wingtech REVVL 7 Pro 5G, which goes for $170 under the T-Mobile brand on Amazon.
Eric Trump admitted it was going to be made in China, so the press release's description, "designed and built in the United States," is just a lie, or actually two lies.
'Eventually': Eric Trump admits new mobile phone isn't being made in the USA
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):
.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.
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Yeah, I guarantee the people who collect it will also have a sizeable collection of nazi memorabilia too.
“I just find the civil war fascinating.”
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