Odds Against Tom Brady’s Stolen Super Bowl Jersey Ending Up On eBay

Image courtesy of SAB0TEUR

There are a few things that shouldn’t need to be said, and yet, someone ends up saying it anyway. Like, “Resistance is futile,” “One does not simply walk into Mordor,” or, “You won’t get away with selling Tom Brady’s missing Super Bowl jersey on eBay.”

The New England Patriots quarterback said someone swiped his jersey after his team’s big win on Sunday night, telling reporters on Monday that it was still missing and “If it shows up on eBay somewhere, someone let me know.”

Silly Tom, that jersey will be treated more like a stolen Van Gogh than an Olive Garden Never Ending Pasta Pass: It will more likely end up stashed in a vault somewhere in someone’s private collection.

“It is like a treasured piece of art that gets stolen,” Robert Moraca, vice president of loss prevention for the National Retail Federation, explained to MarketWatch. “The ultimate buyer can’t show it publicly.”

It’s not like eBay is devoid of stolen merchandise, MarketWatch notes, but even peddling non-high-profile hot merchandise through the online marketplace is a risky endeavor because eBay has a “robust” program aimed at going after fraudsters.

If you do believe you’ve been defrauded by an eBay seller, eBay urges users to call the local police and report it first, get a crime reference number and then let police contact eBay to investigate.

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