Read this before you participate in the ‘Secret Sister’ gift exchange

Notwithstanding, the Secret Sister Gift Exchange fits the definition of a traditional pyramid scheme, as with most ideas that promise big returns on a small investment.

Women are instructed to send a gift of at least $10 in value to the person at the top of a long list of participants, which has been sent to them.

In other words, it’s a chain letter, and a pyramid scheme. You might want to order directly from a web-based service (Amazon, or any other online shop) which saves a trip to the post office. Despite the claims, a chain letter will never make you rich.

“You only spend $10, get one gift for someone else, everybody else sends you one”.

“Chain mail which involves the exchange of money, gifts or other items of value and promise a considerable return to participants are illegal”, said Mechele Agbayani Mills, President and CEO of BBB Serving Central East Texas.

And yet, there’s one problem, it happens to be against the law. Chain letters are a form of gambling, and sending them through the mail (or delivering them in person or by computer, but mailing money to participate) violates Title 18, United States Code, Section 1302, the Postal Lottery Statute.

And your personal information is posted in Facebook. “So there’s the potential that Facebook, if they got wind of this, could block your account”, said Kelli Burns, a mass communications instructor from the University of South Florida.

But it’s so enticing, especially when people see their friends doing it and inviting them to join in.

A gift exchange making the rounds on social media since October boasts the chance of participants receiving up to 36 gifts just for purchasing one.

Like I said, you can be fine with not getting anything, but you don’t know if the person you’re shipping to isn’t really in need of them.

Giving out your name and address online means it could end up in the wrong hands, according to experts. At least, that’s the only way we can think to explain the persistence of the appealing but mathematically impossible “secret sister” hoax, which started popping up on Facebook last month and shows no signs of stopping, despite more than a century of attempts to debunk letters and e-mails like it.