Let's not dismiss Wayfairgate so fast.
I'm not 100% sure items being sold were proxies for child trafficking, but any many are not informed about the concept of "contraband cloaking".
Here is a rundown on how this scam works:
Say you have a Contraband item you want to sell.
You sign up to be a "3rd party seller" on a site that allows this like Amazon, Wayfair, etc....
Now you need to market your wares.
So you copy some items from other stores, you copy item descriptions etc from items that a low in price, but you raise the price to the price of the expensive contraband you want to sell. Then you add in a details that are easily searchable on the web or dark web.
When someone places the order for it, the main site processes your money for you, and provides you with the address etc... Then you send the mule to make the drop at the specified address after payment is received.
The physical item never goes through Amazon/Wayfair warehouse, which is another advantage for illegal sellers is because the price is set so crazy high that regular people will not accidentally order the contraband and alert authorities.
Plus, the 3rd party seller can always contact the buyer through the "Amazon/Wayfair" site and ask them passphrase. This "passphrase/answer" can be a something innocent sounding that is only located on the darkweb site.
A question like "Does the delivery driver need to be aware of vicious Dogs?" is asked of the buyer. And the expected answer is, "No I have a poodle, he is friendly". If the buyer doesn't answer or answers with something that is not expected, then the seller can either cancel the order or order the "original item" and have actual "Amazon/Wayfair" drop ship it to the buyer because they "ordered it".
This protects them against Law enforcement. The seller can always claim to be a 3rd party seller scumbag if this happens.
Not illegal, or if illegal it is better for them to face a basic fraud charge than a drug/human trafficking charge.
Credit to @AlphaSoupNotSee on Twitter.
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24705175? ago
I get your point. But Wayfair employees about 17,000 people and has revenue in the $2 billion range. There would be many employees who manage listings and accounts. These people could get bored, start looking the listings or transactions find these uniquely high priced mundane items. they could end up with some real questions that would lead to the conspiracy.
Too many employees with access to the information makes this seem like "dirtying the water" with more real and legitimate evidence.
The same desired outcome can be used with not for profit and non profit enterprises. The amount of staff you need is far less. The IRS harassment for late 990 forms is much less. And these institutions are easy to create, can easily transfer funds to other similar enterprises.
The Wayfair method seems highly risky with the amount of people involved who have access to information like the shipping and receiving address, financial information, etc.
24711835? ago
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24705300? ago
Correct on all points, OP is larping. Too many people not supposed to know could find out which crashes whole enterprise. Another post commented that high dollar listing is nothing more than to place item at top of search list. People inquire why so much and seller sends them link to correctly priced item. It may get a few interactions between buyer & seller which is better than most scrolling on past item.