When Diandra Toyos went to her local IKEA in San Diego last week with her mother and her 3 children - her 4-year-old daughter and her two sons, 1 and 7 weeks - she expected to spend a pleasant afternoon looking at couches together.
Instead, she had a harrowing experience that she felt compelled to share with other parents on Facebook. While looking at the sofas Toyos spotted a well dressed man who seemed unusually interested in her family.
"At one point," she wrote, "he came right up to me and the boys, and instinctively I put myself between he and my mobile son."
Soon another man, poorly dressed and in his 20s, joined the first one. To test if they were really being followed, Toyos and her family sat down on a couch and waited for nearly 30 minutes.
"They sat down on one of the couches on the display floor that faced us. That was when we knew our gut feeling was right and something was off. They sat the whole time we sat, and stood up right as we got up."
The men also wouldn't make eye contact with them and didn't seem interested in shopping. Toyos managed to lose the men and reported the incident to IKEA staff.
She shared her story on social media, warning other parents to always be vigilant when shopping with their kids. While some mothers thanked Toyos for sharing her story, others pointed out there's no proof that the men were really planning anything.
In her post, Toyos mentions another viral post where a woman claimed she saved her family from human trafficking. In fact, these unconfirmed stories are so common that Snopes has collected a long list of rumors about human trafficking.
In an update to her post, Toyos admits she's not an expert but stands by the "gut feeling" that warned her something was wrong.
"I'm taking an educated guess based on how things played out and what I know," she wrote. "But even if I am wrong about their specific intentions... I KNOW they were up to something and focused on me and my children."
What do you think of her story? Was she right to warn other parents?