Conspiracy theorists on Reddit and Twitter are claiming the furniture company Wayfair is selling humans––specifically missing girls––in their astronomically high-priced storage units.
What is the Wayfair conspiracy theory?
Twitter user @UnicornPlushy posted about it on Thursday, saying “people” suspected that the company was selling humans. The account did not clarify who the “people” are.
“People are suspecting that they’re selling people in these large boxes/storage cabinets on Wayfair,” they wrote. “They all are the same product but have different names, all female names. And they are all priced $10-15k more than the cabinet sold elsewhere.”
The post received thousands of shares on Twitter, with many connecting cherry-picked dots to match the claim.
“Just saw #Wayfair was trending,” wrote one user, sharing photos of storage unit names matching the names of missing girls. “I’ve always wondered which larger companies could be involved in human trafficking sales. This is unsubstantiated, but very notable to look into.”
Another user agreed, sharing screenshots showing missing persons’ names matching Wayfair products.
For a lot of them, it was the extremely high price that added to their suspicions.
“Those prices make sense when you connect the dots like you have. I hope you’re wrong, but I really think your [sic] right. Can you show this to the FBI?” wrote one person.
Some even tried to link it to Wayfair employees’ recent walkout protesting the company for aiding a child migrant detention center
“They have been providing ICE detention centers with furniture. For those willing to pay a little extra, they will put children inside those pieces of furniture. Child human trafficking,” wrote one user without providing any basis or proof of the statement.
It’s also worth noting that child trafficking––or human trafficking in general ––is not easy to do on the Internet unless it’s on the dark web. A 2015 VICE report revealed how swiftly sex traffickers change their domain names, even on the dark web, to ensure they don’t get caught. This is all to say that it’s extremely unlikely for a global sex-trafficking ring to operate through a furniture company.
In an email statement to the Daily Dot, Wayfair said there is no basis to the claims.
“The products in question are industrial grade cabinets that are accurately priced,” the company said on Friday. “Recognizing that the photos and descriptions provided by the supplier did not adequately explain the high price point, we have temporarily removed the products from site to rename them and to provide a more in-depth description and photos that accurately depict the product to clarify the price point.”
According to Heavy.com, a user responded on the Reddit thread that they had contacted the National Human Trafficking Hotline and that the organization opened a case.
Fact-checking website Snopes has flagged the theory as “false.”
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