Image databases hoover up a good deal of data, but for whatever reason, don't manage to grab everything. I'd guess only the popular stuff that is above a certain threshold gets indexed.

Maybe--although I think I've gotten some image matches before.

That's not it. I think I have an inkling of what it might be, but I'm not going to help teach the scammer by spelling it out.

That's not really a big revelation unfortunately:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/attention-don-t-get-scammed

Did you read the comments in this thread? There's no doubt whatsoever that it's a scam.

Unfortunately, scammers have been pretty successful with pinball enthusiasts. Just a single mark can potentially earn them thousands of dollars with a decent story, bargain price, FOMO, and compelling photos.

Thankfully, most people have started recognizing the sighs of a pinball scammer, so I don't think it's been happening quite as often.

This is also probably why they shifted to setting up their own retail pinball websites, rather than continuing to target the forums. It's easier to reel in a newbie who is alone in a confined environment (ie, their website) than targeting the community at large.