In September 2023, I sold a CGC 9 Espeon Ex. It went missing in the mail, and I refunded the buyer.
Inspired by a post on here, I went searching for it again… and found it.
Since I’d never found it sold before, I’m assuming this might be the thief (edit: they told me where they bought it from, a flea market in Columbus, NJ).
Now what?
My original sale:
The recent sale:
Report it at bare minimum on eBay and keep trying if eBay doesn’t respond/take it seriously.
Reach out to CGC and report the cert as stolen.
Edit to add: call CGC’s hotline and prep an email with your proof of claim as well.
I wouldn’t message the seller at all until the “ball is rolling” in your favour, so to speak. If even at all. Leave that to eBay/LEOs if it has to come to that.
Final edit: don’t make any assumptions as to who is behind the account that just sold it, not scolding but it could have changed hands a bunch of times between 2023 and now. If the cert wasn’t reported as stolen until now then no one past the thief would have known for absolute certain that it was stolen.
At least now, you have this sale to use toward recovering either your money or the slab or both but I’m not an attorney and I don’t work for eBay/CGC. There are two addresses linked to this slab as of this past November at least, but again, it’s February 2026. Not snark, please believe that.
If this happens again, or to anyone else, don’t wait two years to report the cert as stolen if you actually think it was stolen.
Either I’m missing something or this post needs more context. A lot could’ve transpired with your card in the last couple years. I’d start with sending the seller a message if you haven’t done so already.
This. I know I spoke toward @jeverstones ‘ post as they wrote it initially but I need to also say that OP didn’t (probably) find the eBay account of the “thief”. Ambiguous posts like this are really hard to give accurate answers toward IMHO without crossing the line into misinformation due to lack of context. This all sounds pretty suspect to me, the biggest benefit of a slabbed card is the ability to specifically use the cert# in a police report/insurance claim. If for nothing else. For all the readers know, especially me, I could be helping someone commit fraud at the same time.
You can only work with what you have and we don’t have much here. I chose to take it at face value and I will suffer the consequences of that choice if/when they come back to me.
Okay, what? I’m not some newbie without a collecting history, and I showed screenshots.
It’s a “possibly” or “probably” stolen by this account. I’ve looked since it was stolen in transit and never seen it sold before. However, maybe this is an intermediate buyer.
This is why I asked for help. I didn’t know what to do.
You could be John Pokémon themselves… we’re on the internet, we’re all as anonymous as we want to be, I don’t actually know any of this for a solid fact. I’m just taking your word.
Photo editing software exists…
People can say whatever they want, too.
No one is saying you aren’t allowed to ask for help either.
Completely uncalled for, but whatever.
Your first message was thoughtful, though. Thank you for your initial share.
Yep, no stress, hopefully you were on hold with either CGC or the non-emergency line for your local police station while you were uploading all those pictures. You don’t need to prove anything to me. I’m on an Internet forum and we’re not the only people reading this, that’s why I said what I said. Good luck, and I mean that sincerely.
Let’s slow down a second before we start accusing random eBay sellers of theft. I agree with the other members that a lot can happen in two and a half years. The card could have changed hands many times. It may not have even been stolen in the first place, it could have been misdelivered, lost and subsequently found, or it did make it to the buyer but the tracking never updated and they took advantage of you.
We’ve had a variety of stories where people have cards lost in the mail that end up in the hands of completely unwitting sellers. I agree that the best thing to do is to report the card to CGC as stolen/lost, but not having a contemporaneous police report may be an issue. It can’t hurt to file one of those, but at this point the statute of limitations on misdemeanor theft has expired so the police will do less than the zero they usually do.
Unfortunately on cases like this there isn’t much to be done as it’s hard to prove anything. You could reach out to the seller and ask them in a friendly manner where they got the card, they may be able to help you trace it back and find out what did happen.
I was surprised and excited to see a stolen card reappear after 3 years.
Thanks for all the help and support everyone.
I would be too.
It’s just difficult to provide actionable steps with limited information. The more you share the better. Everyone is rooting for you.
I hope it works out in the end.
