Wayfair is the latest company to be at the core of a Reddit conspiracy theory. On Friday, the home goods company denied that its selling expensive furniture on its website as a front for human trafficking.
“There is, of course, no truth to these claims,” Susan Frechette, a Wayfair spokeswoman told FOX Business in an email Friday. “The products in question are industrial grade cabinets that are accurately priced.”
The twisted tale gained traction on Thursday when a Reddit user posted a screenshot of Wayfair’s website showing storage cabinets with human names that cost upward of $14,499.99. This led to the user to speculate that the pricey cabinets were instead humans for sale. The products were named Neriah, Yaritza, Samiyah, and Alyvia. Wayfair has since removed the product images from its website and will be renaming the products.
“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 the site to rename them and to provide a more in-depth description and photos that accurately depict the product to clarify the price point,” Frechette continued.
The post to Reddit’s user-submitted conspiracy theory thread questioned if Wayfair’s expensive new cabinet collection was evidence of child sex trafficking, which sent social media into a frenzy.
“Is it possible Wayfair involved in Human trafficking with their WFX Utility collection? Or are these just extremely overpriced cabinets? (Note the names of the cabinets) this makes me sick to my stomach if it’s true,” one Redditor user named PrincessPeach1987 posted.
The conspiracy theory was also fueled by people who claimed to be using a Russian search engine to search for the stock keeping unit number (SKU) for the Wayfair products that allegedly return image results with children in bathing suits, according to Newsweek. However, the SKU searches don’t show images of a single child, which does not support the sex trafficking theory.
