A shocked wife has told how she accused her husband of having an affair after finding a cryptic message – hidden in his UNDERPANTS.
Abbie Bowman, 28, spotted a golden memo scribbled inside one of the three freshly washed pairs of black Primark undies she had recently bought for husband Paul, 25, for £6.
At first, fuming Abbie accused her husband of having an affair, as she thought the message might have been from a mistress.
But after hours trying to unravel the mystery of the four lines of text and searching the internet high and low, she believes the numbers in the final line are linked to an address in Bangladesh.
The note appears to be made up of the letters ALEMAITE along with a series of numbers.
Abbie said: “I bought them at the start of August for my partner and after I had washed them and hung them on the washing line I noticed this address that was written inside the pants on the thigh in gold permanent marker.
“It just had this message inside.
“For about a day I was trying to figure out what it all meant. There was a number at the bottom some I Googled it and it brought up and address in Bangladesh.
“I thought it might have something to do with where they made the pants.
“I spent what felt like all day and all night Googling it and found out other people had reported messages inside clothes they had bought from Primark.
“I emailed Primark and initially made light of things, but they just emailed back to apologising and telling me they would send me an envelope so I could send them pants back.”
In her tongue-in-cheek email Abbie, from Doncaster, South Yorks., wrote: “Dear Primark.
“Last week I came in to your Doncaster branch and purchased a set of three black authentic apparel boxer shorts.
“Upon washing them I noticed it’s an address written in some brown/gold pen.
“After smacking him [Paul] in the mouth as I thought he might have been having an affair and it was some other woman’s address. Turns out when I Googled it its an address in Bangladesh.
“Is this one of those cries for help from those little stitchers you’ve got slapping wanders together for five pence a pop or is it something else?
Abbie said nearly a week later she received a reply from Primark that read: “Dear Ms Bowman. I am in receipt of your email with thanks.
“I was extremely sorry to learn of your experience with underwear purchased at our store and I would like to sincerely apologise for the upset and inconvenience caused to you both on this occasion and I hope you are ok.
“In order for me to fully investigate your comments can you please submit a picture of the underwear along with your postal address in order for me to send you a stamped addressed envelope for you to return the underwear to me.”
Abbie, who is mum to Harley, 10, Jasmine, four, and Leland, two, said she replied to Primark with a similarly tongue-in-cheek email asking for more information on what the message might mean but never got a reply.
In her email Abbie wrote: “May I ask would you like me to wash them first as you don’t want any nasty surprises? (Like we had).
“Thank you for asking how we are I’m fine (I have a lot of making up to do). My hand feels okay but my not so better half has a nasty black eye and swollen lip (I’m now having to make up for the fact the address in the boxers was not his fault).
“Also do you want a picture of my other half modeling the boxers or just the boxers?”
Full-time mum Abbie said despite the playful tone of her emails to Primark she is concerned about supporting a company whose workers could be resorting to writing messages of help inside garments.
She said: “I want to find out if it was a cry for help because if it was then I would consider not shopping there again.
“If it is a message then it is quite upsetting. Reading into what happens to the workers in their sweatshop I would consider not going back.
“Paul is the same at the start he thought it was funny but him like me wants to know what the writing means and has put him off shopping at Primark.”
