Wayfair Still Isn’t Trafficking Kids, FYI

Evidence sort of suggests otherwise, but they insist, okay?

Remember back in 2020 when that weird “algorithm malfunction” made it look like Wayfair was actually trafficking missing children? People started noticing that the online megastore had listings for storage cabinets going for ten to fifteen thousand bucks—each one just coincidentally named after a child who had recently disappeared. Ten thousand dollar pillows similarly christened? “Price glitch,” Wayfair explained.

Uncomfortably, these weren’t common names like Ava or Emma; we’re talking Samiyah, Yaritza, Anabel, Kylah, Duplessis—as in, rare enough that the odds of sheer coincidence were somewhere between “winning the Powerball twice” and “Bill Clinton not lying under oath this time.”

You can blow this up here.

Naturally, the public had questions. And of course, the media had answers. Well, just one, to be exact: “Wayfair says it’s not true!”

Some top-notch investigative journalism from Newsweek back in 2020.

Why would the media jump straight to conspiracy theories if the stories weren’t pre-written? Wouldn’t they be allegations, accusations, claims, charges, or even illicit, outrageous insinuations? Further, the company’s pretext that the spendy items in question were “industrial grade cabinets that are accurately priced” sort of falls apart when you realize they are still selling the same cabinet from the same manufacturer for $139.99.

This one actually had me LingOL: When covering the “false conspiracy,” the BBC accidentally reported that the costly cabinets weren’t the only red flag over at Wayfair. “Some [people] said that after they put stock-keeping unit (SKU) numbers of specific Wayfair products into Yandex—a major Russian search engine—images of young women would appear in the search results. That claim was true, but was down to a glitch in the search engine.”

Wayfair CEO: “Yeah, we’ve had a super glitchy year. It happens.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

But just like that, because Wayfair said of course there’s no truth to the claims hahahaha you silly flat-earthers, it was settled via the magic wand every newsroom waves to banish any further discussion: “This has been debunked.” And just in case anyone wasn’t fully hypnotized, they followed with the guaranteed narrative fire extinguisher: “Wayfair Trafficking Missing Children Is Another QAnon Conspiracy Theory Like Pizzagate.”

You know how when a toddler asks where babies come from and the parent mumbles something incoherent and then yells, “WHO WANTS ICE CREAM”? That’s “Pizzagate” in journalism.

If you were online in the summer of 2020, you remember the ritual. Someone would point out that a utility locker that costs $139 at Home Depot was listed for $12,699 on Wayfair with the name of a fifteen-year-old who’d vanished into thin air, and the internet AWFLs would swoop in: “Yeah, Wayfair explained that. It’s an algorithm! They’re industrial-grade! It’s a pricing glitch! It’s a translation error in Yandex! It’s literally everything except what it really extra looks like! Let me guess, you think Pizzagate is real, too.”

NARRATOR: “She does. She really, definitely does.”

From the infamous Wikileaks drop.

But it worked. For years, anyone who dared to wonder aloud why an online furniture company was hawking five-figure cupboards named after milk carton kids was branded a QAnon quack, a conspiracy kook, or a Facebook wingnut on her fourth glass of rosé. The press treated the idea with the sort of disdain usually reserved for anti-vaxxers and people who say “supposably.” The phrase “widely debunked” became their emotional support blanket.

Some of us [*waves arms wildly*] never quite bought into the debunked bit.

Which brings us to this week, when the new Epstein document drop revealed that back in 2018, none other than the then-girlfriend of the planet’s most notorious human trafficker purchased a single item from Wayfair in the amount of $8,453. Even. No tax, no change—pretty much every other item on Wayfair ends in .95, .97, or .99—no description of the item. Just one very expensive, duty-free mystery widget (which came with some incredibly personalized follow-up service from Wayfair to boot).

I’ve made a few Wayfair purchases in my day, so I just scanned my email for some receipts. Strangely, they all spell out precisely what I bought and they all had tax added. You know, because when you buy something legal, the government expects its cut.

The latest file drop also shows that Epstein purchased some [*checks notes*] … chairs… and had them sent to fellow accused creeper Woody Allen. Maybe rich people gift each other seatware? I wouldn’t really know.

An alert TikToker combed through the latest files and found more than 8,000 references to home furnishings in general—including a billion dollars in payments to Ashley Furniture. “I built furniture for decades,” one commenter replied. “A billion dollars could outfit every home in a metropolis. He wasn’t buying furniture. Its a Wayfair scheme for ordering up kids.”

Don’t shoot; I’m just quoting here.

In a world where Covid never happened, you might actually expect this to be a story. An absurdly overpriced purchase from the same retailer at the center of a “debunked conspiracy theory” suddenly showing up in Epstein’s financial records? Bought just months before his arrest? Plus another 10-figure tab at a single furniture store? You’d think one reporter would get curious. Maybe even two if it was a slow news week.

Instead? Crickets. Not even a “Fact Check: No, Epstein’s Single $8,453 Wayfair Item Isn’t Proof of Anything, Stop Being Hysterical.” The entire media industrial complex—save the Hindustan Times—simply ignored it.

Actual photo of the mainstream media covering this story.

Obviously, one lightly redacted email doesn’t prove that Wayfair was somehow involved in selling children. But a man who ran an international trafficking operation orders an incredibly expensive… something… from the very brand everyone was freaking out about months later, and the official explanation is… coincidence? Really?

Speaking of coincidences, it seems the U.S. government was a big fan of Wayfair when Obama was president, but then as soon as Trump took office, I guess the White House found a different, better furniture vendor. Or maybe it was just, you know, some pre-DOGE budget tightening or something. No one can really say.

I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of it. I’m sure the same media who assured us “Wayfair said they’re not trafficking children!” and “John Podesta said Pizzagate isn’t true!” will find a way to explain this, too. Maybe Obama will say, “It was desks!” and everyone can go home. After all, if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the last decade, it’s that the quickest way to get a story “debunked” is simply to ask the alleged culprit whether they did it.

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