Mom has shocking warning about popular kids toy — and how it can expose them to predators
Walkie-talkies are supposed to be the harmless version of a phone, allowing for people – even children – to speak to one another safely with no outside interference.
But, after one mom’s horror experience, you wouldn’t be blamed for hesitating before purchasing them again.
“The children were hearing it”
Parents are being warned against purchasing walkie-talkies for their children, after one mom heard an unknown man making moaning noises on the other side.
The Christchurch mom told the New Zealand Herald that she purchased the toys from Kmart as Christmas presents, and was making dinner when she heard the strange sounds from the other side of the house that only got creepier and creepier.
“I went down to my children’s bedroom and saw my kid’s walkie-talkie on his bed, and the noises were clearly coming from there, and the man was making sexual moaning sounds over the walkie-talkie,” she said.
“Clear sexual innuendos, just saying things like ‘Do you like sausages? I’m gonna come over, you’re gonna cook my sausage and I’m gonna make you eat it. Mmmm, I’m coming for you. I’m coming over to you now’. It went on for a good few minutes.”
Horrified, the mom said she tried to switch the walkie-talkie off – but she wasn’t able to.
“From the moment the kids started playing with the walkie-talkie, the on button just was permanently stuck on. So I was just running around the house trying to find a screwdriver so I could get the batteries out, and, of course, the children were hearing it,” she said.
She said that given that there’s a 300m maximum distance on the walkie-talkies, she even locked her doors in case the man was nearby. However, local police were able to calm her worries.
“They explained that with someone else if they have a stronger frequency radio they could be further away and still send you a message, but you just wouldn’t be able to reply to them,” she said.
Watch out!
The mom also alerted Kmart of the issue, who she said were ‘really good’ with the issue.
A Kmart spokesperson told news.com.au that the situation had nothing to do with faults in the product itself, and instead are a danger possible with any similar communication device.
“Toy-grade walkie talkies conform to public UHF CB radio standards,” the spokesperson said.
“They are designed to operate within a limited frequency range, with a preset channel, not allowing users to switch. Occasional interference is not a defect in the product itself.
“Like any communication devices provided to children, we recommend parents exercise discretion and supervise how their children use the device.”
It’s more common than you think
Because of this, it seems the issue is more common than you might expect.
The mom took to social media to share what had happened, with hundreds of people rushing to the comments with similar stories.
An Aussie mom also told Kidspot just last year that a similar scenario happened to her and her children at a local campsite.
One of her boys and his friend had a walkie-talkie each, with a third left at their campsite with the parents. Everything seemed normal, until someone said they heard a voice they didn’t recognise on the channel.
“[My son] said that someone had come onto the channel and told him to go to the playground,” she says.
“So he went there – which was right next to our own caravan, but we were at someone else’s site at the time – thinking it was one of the parents messing around. He got on the walkie talkie and said, ‘I’m here’, and the person said, ‘Now go to your caravan’. And Ari responded, saying, ‘I’m here, where are you?’ And he said something like, ‘I’m the bald guy’. And that was it.”
Not surprisingly, the walkie-talkies were only used between an adult and child from that point on during the holiday.
“We’ve always taught the kids about stranger danger, but there were lots of chats that happened with all of the kids after that,” the cautious mom-of-two says.
