they accidentally sent me one of them when i ordered a nightstand.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4580884&forum_id=2,#40580650)

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/hom3xj/people_have_discovered_a_highly_possible_human/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4580884&forum_id=2,#40580908)

If your engaging in human trafficking I'd assume you wont be able to simply write a check or bust out a car or whatever when your trying to get your next victim.

Having a proxy stand in on a website does make sense, just like buying drugs via a clever proxy, you are buying "furniture" for a hugely inflated price from a trusted source that won't cause a red flag or anything. It is convenient as well - you can use a credit card or a wire or whatever. If anyone asks or looks they just see an expensive furniture item on the CC, which is NBD if you are super rich.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4580884&forum_id=2,#40580947)

https://www.wayfair.com/furniture/sb0/sofas-c413892.html

It seems like 100% of their inventory has unusual names

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4580884&forum_id=2,#40581151)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/style/amazon-trademark-copyright.html

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4580884&forum_id=2,#40581206)

https://www.wayfair.com/decor-pillows/pdp/bloomsbury-market-ferreira-lumbar-pillow-cover-tpch1036.html?piid=35102341

https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/lehighvalley/missing-easton-teen-found-safe-police-say/article_030b8a72-9f6e-11ea-9ca3-0f900b5e0fd0.html

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4580884&forum_id=2,#40581364)

https://twitter.com/spiritedfather/status/1281636401897824257?s=21

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4580884&forum_id=2,#40582477)

Executive Summary: A substantial amount of Walmart's and Amazon's Inventory as well as third party GMV, despite the perception that these businesses are great "American" businesses, is not "Made In The USA" . Moreover, much of the third party GMV is from questionable sources. (Again, neither Amazon nor Walmart disclose GMV. As a matter of perspective, eBay, a much smaller company footprint by any standard, pumps out GMV of roughly US$80 Billion annually.)

In this section we examine oddly priced, $250 a bag "potting soil" sold by a New Jersey Distributor "We The People" as one such example of the many dubious offerings available from un-vetted third party sellers. In all likelihood, these odd examples of absurdly priced goods sold by shell company websites are likely designed to move money to places it shouldn't go. Of course, I'm not accusing anyone of anything here, but lets say, hypothetically, that a Chinese drug smuggler wanted to get paid. He might start a New Jersey Distributor and instruct his customers to purchase "luxury potting soil" as payment for Opioids. The payment makes its way back to China, ostensibly as payment for the potting soil. I picked this example solely because I find it pushing the envelope of absurdity. There are lots of "less goofy" products out there, but they all serve the same purpose, to get money back to China via dubious GMV on Walmart and Amazon storefronts. I'm hoping this piques your curiosity since, at least to me, it's actually pretty entertaining financial comedy.

The next Executive Summary is "Dirty Laundry...."

Well, spring has sprung and I have some annuals I want to put in now that it's only snowing every other week here in Cleveland. Time to get busy with my gardening! We have these wonderful hanging baskets on our front porch. Wax Begonias thrive in the shade and look beautiful in the baskets. Of course, I wanted to get some new potting soil and I really prefer the best available, since the plants thrive with a high quality mix.

Obviously, the first place I went to research something like this, like everything we buy as American Consumers, was Walmart.com. Walmart, as we all know, is fantastic for things like this since they are "Always the Low Price" and there's a Walmart Super-Duper Center only 3 miles (much less than 15 miles) away from my home.

I put "Potting Soil" in the Walmart.com search bar and sorted from highest to lowest price (I always want the highest quality) and WHOOOOAHHH! I found some really expensive potting soil! $250/per bag!....$5.00 a pound for dirt! Hardly "Always the Low Price!"

https://www.walmart.com/ip/BUMPER-CROP-ORGANIC-SOIL-AMENDMENT/165159583#read-more

I've posted these links along with the screen shots to document the existence of this "magic dirt", presuming that once this blog gets to the appropriate level of management at Walmart, that these links and "We the People" postings will be long gone......only to be replaced by other weird newly created vendors selling $1,000 dust mops or $500 garden gnomes, in the never ending game of OJ Simpsonian-Zuckerbergian whack-a-mole....and a never ending search for "the real killers".

This really awesome (and expensive) potting soil is sold by a third party seller that goes by the name of "We the People". When we examine the price points in descending order, after the "We the People" products listed on Walmart.com, the price drops off dramatically to about $30.00 for comparably sized bags/products. When I look at the same "Master Nursery" product on Amazon.com it's about $30.00. (I bought a 46 lb. bag of good old Akron, Ohio "Miracle Gro" dirt for about $8.00.) That seemed like a much better deal to me.

As an aside, if Walmart wanted to compete head to head with "We the People" in the "$250 a bag luxury dirt" segment, don't you think they could have just asked a few of their home and garden department employees to grab some shovels, go out back, dig up some dirt up and bag it off? The margin would be HUGE!

Since I knew virtually nothing about luxury dirt, I needed to find out more about the "We the People" Company. Incredibly, they get hundreds of favorable reviews on their $250/bag potting soil, mostly written by people who can't spell and have problems with "good English". Their logo is also an odd version of the American flag.

When we click the "About this seller" link we get the following:

https://www.walmart.com/reviews/seller/335?offerId=4D3C6822EF1C49B49A0030892EEE8E2E

About this seller

'We The People' has a combined experience of over 50 years in merchandising, consumer goods and most importantly, customer satisfaction. We come from humble backgrounds where we work hard and take care of our homes and families. We aren't complicated people. We like having fun and helping others! WTP offers a wide variety of merchandise at great pricing, all ready to ship right to your door! Our goals is simple, provide the greatest shopping experience possible while continuing to make improvements on a daily basis. We strive to deliver greatness. Let us know how we can help you today!

I for one think that this is just AWESOME! 50 Years of EXPERIENCE! What a great American business model! Their marketing people are cutting edge! They cleverly use self deprecating, incorrect tense and odd grammar to fit in with "real" Americans! Oddly enough, there was no phone number or address listed for "We the People" on Walmart.com. There is only a mention that they don't collect sales tax in any states except New Jersey. Moreover, the only way to contact them under the customer service tab on Walmart.com is through an email address:

support@essentialhardware.com.

That's strange, who is "EssentialHardware.com"? When we do some poking around through New Jersey public filings we find that they are a relatively new company called Dukat, LLC (Incorporated about 6 years ago....slightly less than 50 years). Additional DBA's, which generally link to websites littered with misspellings and bad grammar are: Bargain the People, Essentialhardware.com, Grace's Greens, Heads Up Action,.Marine Screens, Offtopia, Pup Daddy, Skoozel, Tech To Commerce, We the People, Yumza

Here's the BBB report:

https://www.bbb.org/new-jersey/business-reviews/general-merchandise/dukat-llc-in-edison-nj-90161431/bbb-accreditation

When we poke around a little more, we find some more, oddly familiar, goofy language, mimicking the Walmart.com "We the People" seller info, from their EssentialHardware.com website:

At Essential Hardware we come from humble backgrounds where we work hard and take care of our homes. We aren’t complicated people. We like having fun and helping others, we enjoy spending time with our families, and most of all we’re obsessive about doing more with less. It’s who we are - and now it’s how we do business.

Now of course with all of these items available, you might be wondering where we keep them all. Well for one thing, we have warehouses all across the country tucked away in beautiful locations right near you so shipping is always efficient and speedy. And our custom distribution method is the only way to deliver this many products so affordably - something we are constantly improving on to save you even more time and money.

According to MarketplaceRating.com:

"We the People" is one of the TOP 500 sellers on Walmart. The average price of all their products is $35. They currently stock 10,000 products in Seasonal, Office, Auto & Tires, Home Improvement and Music categories. Browse all We The People products here.. Last month reviews data shows, that "We The People" is in the 138th place. According to feedback numbers of the last year "We The People" was doing better - they were number 83rd. For the latest reviews please check their page on Walmart."

I've also posted a couple of the 550+ Walmart.com Reviews for "We The People" below. They are pretty much are all like this. Either the reviews are 1.) "Five Star" with either no comment, or misspelled, grammatically odd kudos; or 2.) "One Star", generally hateful commentary, presumably from people who had accidentally purchased something from this dubious company. Hmmmmmm......

I particularly liked "came quickly in mail, packaged carefully for a toxic product"

I hope they weren't talking about my luxury potting soil!

Master Nursery is apparently the "Manufacturer" of the products in these $250/bag "We the People" offerings. The primary distributor is "The Coast of Maine" for both the "Bumper Crop" and "Gardner's Gold" potting soil products. These products are also certified as "Organic" by OMRI (Organic Materials Review Institute).

I reached out to these three organizations by both phone and email, asking about the "$250 a bag Walmart dirt", I provided links to the products and specifically asked where this really expensive dirt was being manufactured. Neither Master Nursery or The Coast of Maine responded. I'm guessing they thought I was a lawyer. OMRI responded via email as follows.

"Thank you for contacting OMRI. You will need to contact the company for more information about their product. Have a great day! Warm regards, Josna"

Apparently, the organization that "certifies" this $250/bag dirt as organic has no idea where this awesome dirt is made, or if they did, don't want to disclose it.

So now let's take a look at the a sample of Walmart's Inventory. Rather than plunk down $250 for designer dirt from "We The People" I thought I'd go "old school", avoid eCommerce and drive to the Walmart to pick up a bag of dirt myself. As I drove past the rows of vacant, boarded up neighborhood store fronts, ripe for redevelopment, I felt a sense of hope that maybe Amazon or Walmart might someday make use of this space, perhaps robot/drone manned kiosks? With luck, they could put a specialized, automated luxury Chinese-dirt kiosk right on the corner where that abandoned hardware store stands now....I'd never have to leave the gates of my development!

As I was walking through Walmart trying to find the luxury dirt bags, I came up with a wonderful game. I took my Motorola/Lenovo (Chinese) smart phone (which I really like) and took random pictures of the "Made in" tags. The rules of the game were, 1.) I would not include TV's and phones (none of those are made in America anyway and that would skew the sample), and 2.) That I would not include food or health and beauty products presuming that a.) The FDA has a reasonable control of our food supply and b.) Most of America's food and hygiene products are manufactured by great American companies like Nestle', Unilever, Danone and ABF.

To accomplish this sample, I randomly walked through Walmart, took 20 or so steps, walked to a shelf, grabbed an item and snapped a picture of the inventory tag showing where the item was "Made in _____". Pictures of the tags and the results are posted below.

The result is that, not surprisingly, virtually nothing at Walmart (6% of Sampled Inventory) is made exclusively in America. To be fair, 19% of the Inventory is actually "Made in the USA with Globally Sourced Parts" which generally means that foreign made parts are brought here, slapped together and put in a box, appropriately labeled as "Made in the USA (sort of)". i.e.) Trash bags are "Made in America with Globally Sourced Parts". I can't tell for sure but there are only two parts to a box of trash bags (the box and the roll of bags), so either the trash bags or the box were "made" in the USA. My bet would be on the box.

As expected, 19 of the 32 goods sampled (60%) are made in China. Interestingly, iconic American brands like Wrangler Jeans and America's pastime, Major League Baseball (MLB), have chosen Nicaragua as their licensed production source while the National Football League (NFL), the sport of America's heartland, went with Vietnam to produce their replica jerseys.

The only conclusion I can come to from this albeit limited, statistically insignificant sample, is that virtually nothing sold by Walmart, Amazon and by extension "American Retail" is actually "Made in America" anymore. Even though most of the goods sold directly by Amazon and Walmart (and included in Revenue) are presumably legitimate, I have significant concerns as to the "Third Party GMV" which neither Amazon nor Walmart have deemed important enough to disclose. I initially described this phenomenon in my October, 2016 post entitled: Cheap reading Glasses, Handbags.....and the Wiemar Republic.... where I talked about the significant level of "odd" and presumably "fake" third party sales listings on US eCommerce platforms.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4580884&forum_id=2,#40582900)