To Redditors, it’s just another conspiracy.

As with many threads on the “front page of the Internet”, it all started with a simple question:

“What conspiracy theory do you 100% buy into and why?”

Of course it sparked hundreds of responses, as people willingly donned their tinfoil hats and replied with glee under the guise of their user name.

But then this one came along, and was quickly picked up as possibly more than just a conspiracy:

You see, Mattress Firm is the largest specialty mattress retailer in the US. It acquired another mattress store, Sleepy’s, in 2015.

It now has over 3 500 stores across the States, “sometimes in high concentrations,” reports Business Insider:

The comment thread went on to argue that there are just too many stores, especially since it stocks a product that “people typically buy every seven to 10 years”:

And then, someone had to point out that it was owned by Steinhoff.

In 2016, the under fire South African retailer bought Mattress Firm for $3,8 billion (R45,3 billion).

Yeah, bra – sexy looking, hey?

At the time, analysts were skeptical about why Steinhoff had forked over so much for a business increasingly threatened by new startups such as Casper, which sells “an obsessively engineered mattress at a shockingly fair price”.

However, soon after the idea that Mattress Firm was a front for dirty laundry took off, the company’s CEO, Ken Murphy, hit back, sending a statement to Business Insider on Wednesday:

“The idea that the proximity of Mattress Firm store locations is related to money laundering or any illegal activity is absolutely false.

For the last 30 plus years, we’ve been committed to providing customers the value of a good night’s sleep, and our convenient locations in highly-trafficked areas keep us top of mind when it’s time to buy a mattress. Additionally, multiple acquisitions have added to our real estate portfolio, sometimes resulting in store locations in close proximity.

“Optimizing [sic] our fleet has been and will continue to be a part of our strategic roadmap and we evaluate duplicative or under-performing stores, as well as shifting retail trade areas, with this intention. We also continue to open stores in new and underpenetrated markets to best serve the local community and our employees.

Above all, we remain steadfast in our goal to continue to do what we do best — help customers find the perfect mattress and get a better night’s sleep.”

They even went to Twitter:

Us looking at our mentions like… pic.twitter.com/B7okaxf4Qx

— Mattress Firm (@MattressFirm) January 24, 2018

Boring.

Here’s a look at other companies that Steinhoff bought in the past couple of years:

Wash that money, boys!

[source:businessinsider&businessinsider]