If you’ve ever felt bad about making a terrible investment, rest assured it couldn’t possibly be as terrible as the one Logan Paul recently made. Less than a month after the YouTuber-turned-boxer made headlines for purchasing the “only known sealed box of first-edition base set Pokemon cards” for a staggering $3.5 million, Paul has revealed he was scammed.
Following speculation online regarding the authenticity of the cards, Paul decided to film an unboxing video for his channel, inviting a well-known trading card authenticator to assist him in verifying the validity of the cards. Despite the authenticator assuring Paul the boxes looked indisputably official back when he first came into contact with them last March, the pair–along with a few of Paul’s friends–opened a box to reveal several cases of wrapped Pokemon card packs that had obviously been tampered with.
Spirits at an all time low, the group then decided to open up a box, after which it was revealed the contents were not Pokemon cards at all, but rather piles of GI Joe trading cards stuffed into Pokemon-themed boxes.
“Oh my god, bro.” Paul yelled, pushing himself out of his seat as the video’s backing track swelled dramatically. “GI Joe? GI Joe? GI Joe? It could have been anything else!”
“We all got duped.” The authenticator replied nervously. “Agreed?”
Earlier in the video, Paul assured his fans the man he purchased the cards from–Matt–was now a close friend, and would surely refund Paul if the cards were fraudulent. Matt was one of the friends with Paul at the unboxing and expressed his sympathy and shock for Paul, though the pair didn’t discuss if he would be refunded or if they were going to take any steps towards prosecuting the original seller.
Paul ended the video by expressing how disheartened he was by the exchange, stating he was sad for the Pokemon trading card community as whole for having to deal with scams similar to this one regularly, but even more appreciative of the authentic cards he did possess. The video then faded, quite cheekily, into the GI Joe theme song.
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