A popular furniture website has become the latest entity to become entangled in the never ending barrage of bizarre, illogical and entirely unfounded ‘QAnon’ conspiracy theories.
Before a couple of weeks ago, most of the complaints we found online directed at WayFair were concerned with the site being too expensive, their delivery times too slow, and in some rare cases, poor customer service. As far as online retailer reviews go, that’s pretty par for the course.
But now the reviews for the upscale furniture website have taken a turn to the more sinister, as the site has become the target for a slew of unfounded conspiracies that assert the site is trafficking children for sex, and is involved with the very real scandal surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
As is often the case for such conspiracies, the argument – which appears to have started on a Reddit conspiracy thread – is based almost entirely on a rather benign observation; that the company has several items listed on its site with extremely high price points. Most notably, cabinets, that are listed for several thousand dollars.
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There are, of course, any number of perfectly reasonable and logical explanations for this, ranging from simple mistakes in the listings themselves to people not understanding that some cabinets are just really expensive. But as with most conspiracies of this ilk, the innocent and most logical explanations that Occam’s Razor would suggest are more likely accurate are eschewed in favor of absurd and outlandish accusations of human trafficking.
Such conspiracy theorists continue by noting that many of the high priced items listed on WayFair have girls names attached to them, which match with the names of girls that have gone missing over the years (and thus someone purchasing such an item would actually receive that particular girl) and that typing in the WayFair SKU number on a Russian search engine reveals photos of underage girls.
Again, as is predictable with such conspiracies, these theories tend to gloss over (or brazenly ignore) some pretty gaping holes in logic and believability, and fall foul to some cursory fact checking.
Why sell children on a well-known, public website?
The unfortunate and disturbing reality is that there is a plethora of tools online for those that wish to engage in selling illegal materials – even humans – on the Internet. Journalism is rife with reports of girls being sold on the Dark Web for hundreds of thousands of dollars, but given its nature and the high level of anonymity The Dark Web affords its users, it is extremely difficult to gage the popularity of how often humans are genuinely sold using the Internet.
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Regardless, if the tools for anonymity are there, why would those engaging in sex trafficking use a public facing website that would expose their operation to anyone with an Internet connection?
The advertising and selling of illegal material online has become such an advanced operation, thanks to the on-going technological “arms race” between Internet criminals and authorities looking to catch them, that reverting to selling such materials on an easily traceable, public facing website is entirely irrational.
This isn’t to mention that if the listings are available online, would the crooks not risk selling children to customers that were actually just looking for an item of furniture? Industrial grade cabinets really do fetch price points into the five figures (as other websites attest) so what would happen if a child was sent to a customer expecting a cabinet? It sounds so absurd because the very nature of these conspiracies propositions is equally so.
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One of the more illogical pieces of “evidence” attached to such theories is that since the items listed on WayFair have girls names, then they must be representing real girls with matching names that have gone missing over the years.
This fails on three points.
1. It is common practise for websites to name products with female names. Countless websites name high priced items, often after girls’ names or place names. Check out this 6 drawer dresser on Birch Lane called Madison.
2. It is extremely unlikely that kidnapped girls would subsequently be advertised online using their real names. This would be a needless risk and make little sense since it could potentially help those tracking down kidnap victims.
3. While those looking into this conspiracy have correctly noted that many of the female names used to advertise cabinets on WayFair do match those names of children that have previously gone missing from around the world, it is worth noting that according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, around 800,000 children going missing each year. As such, you could potentially pick almost any female name and match it to a missing child media article or police report.
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Theorists peddling this claim also note that typing in WayFair SKU’s along with the words “usa sku” reveal images of children on Russian search engine Yandex. That’s true, but irrelevant, since typing in any combination of numbers reveals the same collection of images, and the images are of different girls, usually showing modelling shots. As such, there is nothing connecting in this phenomenon with WayFair.
While a denial is unlikely to dissuade anyone seriously peddling this conspiracy, WayFair’s denial does demonstrate a point we’ve already made, and that is more mundane and logical explanations are most likely to be accurate. According to WayFair, the cabinets are accurately priced, but many did not accurately explain why the price point was so high, so the listings were removed to be edited. A company spokesperson said –
“There is, of course, no truth to these claims. The products in question are industrial grade cabinets that are accurately priced. 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.
Again this reiterates another mundane piece of reality, and that is industrial cabinets really are just very expensive. Check out this $20,000 display cabinet on Brights of Nettlebed.
That’s a Getty Images image, and the man seen next to Ghislaine Maxwell is not named. There is no “Bill Hutcherson”, and no President of Operations at WayFair.
Photos of a man wearing a t-shirt with the WayFair logo are real, but it involves a case that had nothing to do with WayFair the company itself. The man is Frederick Walker Jr. from Barnesville, who was arrested with 20 others on charges related to operating a prostitution ring, as well as narcotics possession and obstruction of officers. The story about the police operation and arrests is here, and there is no mention of WayFair being involved in any capacity.
While the Internet is flush with a variety of “evidence” and “research” (that usually amount to thin, frivolous connections or outright fake information) attempting to implicate WayFair to sex trafficking, there is simply no reasonable evidence or reason to justify such an outlandish claim.