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All across the Internet, a new scam is brewing and finding willing victims looking for holiday love on Facebook. The “Secret Sisters Gift Exchange” generally presents itself as an emoji-laden Facebook update or innocuous looking tweet. Much like a chain letter, the service promises to hook givers up with an avalanche of Christmas presents. The basic idea is that you send gifts (valued at $10 or more) to six people; and they send gifts to six more people; and so on. The initial giver should receive (at least) a total of 36 presents.
By the power of exponents, another twenty-five rounds would easily involve millions of participants. Soon, the entire world could be Secret Sisters.
Sounds fun, right? Not so much.
Why this idea appeals remains a mystery. The thought of nominal gifts between people who don’t know each others’ tastes doesn’t sound awesome. Even worse, sending these presents opens one up to valuable information in the form of return addresses. Nonetheless, this message appears all over Twitter and Facebook.
If you are dumb enough to fall for this, you deserve it. Give some shit to Toys-For-Tots or some shit instead.
…or you WILL be reported?!
This is the “mail someone a dollar in a prepaid return envelope” scam from the 90s, repurposed for the internets!
Surely it’s not a scam. To get that many presents for just $10 I’m willing to take the risk. But there’s also this Nigerian prince asking me for help, so I’m currently on the fence about which one to go with.
Did they target that to ladies because they think they can’t do math or understand logic problems. If we all just send one gift then we’ll somehow all get 36 in return… That makes total sense