Am I the only one who didn't know

[Agespot]

I was looking for something to get for our indoor cats when I came across a wheel that they can run in, thinking this is great I was looking for a good one, the prices varied from 40-60 pounds. But then I saw one for about 4k, it looked just the same as the others apart from thé price.
When I mentioned this to someone at work they said yes, people do this to sell sex, or sex trafficking or something just as horrendous! I was shocked and thought but surely the police would be all over it, they said it's organised crime?
What the hell!
Has anyone heard of this and seen anything like it, oh I saw this on Amazon.
And if so, do you have thoughts on whether it's true.

(on a different note - if you’re looking at getting a cat wheel, you need a bigger one that you think!!)
cat wheels can cause spinal issues if too small.

Yes this. This is the theory people have

My friend showed me (a few years ago now) these kids' dressing up outfits that were on ebay for several hundred to several thousand pounds...apparently a cover up for adverts selling kids?

@Agespot ive just read a comment like this on another MN post on the Epstein files .

They were saying about wayfair . A few years ago when they would be selling a cheap unit for 12k and you could only purchase with a promo code. These items were listed with different names of girls who had went missing.

I’m so glad I didn’t spend my 4k on a cat wheel this morning, I really could have done something very stupid there. Thanks for the heads up!! These scammers are the worst.

P.S. I didn’t know either!

Not me thinking people get transported out of the country in a giant cat wheel

Its a load of rubbish. The reason they boost the price so much is because they dont have it in stock but dont want a resisting fee of taking it off and putting it on again (i think also impacts their algorithms) so they wack it up to a stupid price that no one will buy until it comes back into stock, then just put back to normal price.

If you want to go down the rabbit hole of the conspiracy, search Wayfair scandal but just remember it's already been debunked. No one is ordering a pillow for £30k and ending up getting a random child delivered.

There is a thread at the moment trotting out the Wayfair rubbish again.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/ninety_days_only/5486871-wtf-is-this?reply=150369330

Slightly more boring but more realistic suggestion here. I experienced something similar on eBay once- a very cheap item listed for a huge amount of money so nobody bought it. I actually messaged the seller and ask what it was all about. He said that he did it when eBay offered a promotional free listing/ no fees event (back when selling usually incurred a % fee). It meant that, if he had nothing at the time to sell, it essentially secured a free listing for when he did have stock.
Perhaps Amazon do something similar for their business sellers?

I think that you will find that this is just a conspiracy theory along the same lines as the pizza menus.
People who traffic children and women into prostitution don't need these elaborate disguises as if they are that scared about being caught they just use the dark web

This must be why m&s pay she’d loads to advertise items on instagram etc….only for them never to be in stock!

I understand what it means but don’t believe it happens. Anyone looking for that kind of thing will do it on the dark web and not a mainstream website.

I've come across this. I learned about it when I looked into how an item could be many many thousands when it was a bog standard item from Dunelm.

My first thought was are they human sized ones so people held in captive can exercise...

You didn't know because there isn't anything to know 😁

I have no idea what you're talking about the cat wheel. However if you think human trafficking isn't happening in strange and creative ways because 'the police would be all over it' then you're very naive

The dark web exists, it doesn't really stand up to much scrutiny that crimanls are infiltrating cat toy websites.

Thank you OP for the 30 seconds I spent wondering how cat wheels were used for sex trafficking. I thought they were the Next Big Thing, after small boats and container lorries.

Can the cats not just - run around the house? (misses the point entirely)

I actually had no idea at all what you thought!

As an aside, though, cat wheels sound horrendous. Wouldn't they just be a vehicle for cats to engage in the kind of obsessive, disturbed behaviour that result from over-restriction and under-stimulation? Like a tiger pacing in a too-small cage?

So instead of using a stolen bank account or taking cash, the person sets up an account with one of the biggest companies in the world and accepts a traceable payment. This wouldn’t have crossed my mind and doesn’t sound very likely.

But I do sometimes see very expensive versions of something using the same photos as the cheaper version and wonder what that’s about. I would assume it’s to create fake reviews for other products as I definitely hear about that rather than trafficking

Had no idea you could buy cat wheels!

Someone I used to know years ago told me about the Wayfair thing. She loves a conspiracy theory, and I was mystified as to how she could be so stupid to believe this.