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Consumer Handbook: Social Media "Secret Sister" Gift Exchanges Are Typically Pyramid Schemes

Better Business Bureau

A "Secret Santa" around the office, friends, and family can be fun. A gift exchange among online friends you haven’t met, well, that’s a little different and carries a heftier consequence.

These gift exchanges, while they look like innocent fun, are really pyramid schemes, and are considered illegal. The “Secret Sister” gift exchange campaign quickly became popular in 2015 through Facebook posts promising participants would receive up to 36 gifts in exchange for sending one gift.

Each holiday season, the scheme pops back up. A newer version of this scam revolves around exchanging bottles of wine; another suggests purchasing $10 gifts online. You might see references to receiving "happy mail" or doing the exchange "for the good of the sisterhood."

The scheme starts with a convincing invitation, either by email or social media to sign up for what seems like a great, fun program. All you must do is provide your name and address and personal information of a few additional friends, and tack this information on to a list that’s already started of people you’ve never met on the internet. Next, it’s your turn to send an email or social media invitation to send a modest gift or bottle of wine to a stranger along with their friends, family and contacts. The cycle continues and you’re left with buying and shipping gifts for unknown individuals, in hopes that the favor is reciprocated by receiving the promised number of gifts in return. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen.

Just like any other pyramid scheme, it relies on the recruitment of individuals to keep the scam afloat. Once people stop participating in the gift exchange, the gift supply stops as well, and leaves hundreds of disappointed people without their promised gifts.

The next time someone promises a bounty of gifts or cash by mail, email, or social media, BBB recommends the following: Ignore it! Keep in mind that pyramid schemes are international. Chain letters involving money or valuable items and promises of big returns are illegal. Report the social media posts, and never give your personal information to strangers.
 

Cape Girardeau native Whitney Quick is the former Regional Director of Better Business Bureau in Cape Girardeau, MO. She joined the Cape Chamber as Vice President of Programs and Leadership Development in May 2023. Quick is a graduate of Cape Girardeau Central High School and Southeast Missouri University where she majored in public relations.