I once made a purchase of art on Ebay - before the purchase I did my homework and checked out the seller - on Ebay he had over three thousand five star reviews, a B&M store with hundreds of five star google reviews and I could not find any complaints whatsoever with either the BBB or State Consumer Affairs office so I felt comfortable purchasing the item which was in the five figure range. About three months later I received a call from the Las Vegas police department - the item had been stolen from a store at the Venetian hotel. The Ebay seller had purchased the item from an Estate sale and did not realize that the item had been stolen. Long story short - the store had been reimbursed by their insurance company, so the insurance company took possession of the item. I had used my personal platinum for the purchase and after receiving copies of the police report and confirmation that the insurance company had the item, Amex reimbursed me 100%. Fortunately for me, I did not go through PayPal but paid directly with my Amex. I do know that Amex was required to provide the LVPD verification that I did indeed pay for the item and was not involved in the theft whatsoever.

Also of note - I learned that insurance companies utilize a service to scan the web for high value items that were reported stolen and do so for many years after the claim was paid. My item had been reported stolen two years earlier.. The investigator that was assigned to my case told me it is not unusual to recover items ten or more years later.