Paid for Char recently, vendor says all gear was lost

I bought a lvl 80 Pally from a player on Icecrown a couple of weeks ago. The only thing he had on him were the the ICC set pieces (except legs, no other gear besides that set). I recently contacted the vendor and he said that the toon had atleast 5.8k GS (so he had to have all gear). Is it possible that the gear was lost in the transfer? Or did the vendor just lie to me? (For instance, I am exalted with Ashen Verdict but did not have the ring on me OR the quest available).