A new social media scam that models itself after the classic chain letter gifting scheme is making its way around the internet, including Facebook, according to ABC News. The "Secret Sister Gift Exchange" scam involves posing as a friend or family member and asking you on a social media site to join the "secret sister gift exchange," where you send a gift to the first "sister" on the list and then get added to it in order to receive your own gift.
"We have seen similar gifting circles or gifting clubs in the past spread via mail, some of those actually turned out to be pyramid schemes which are illegal," said Noelle Talley, a spokesperson from the North Carolina Attorney General's office.
The scam poses many risks to users, including the release of their home address and personal information to the public, according to The Christian Post. To make matters worse, the scam is a pyramid scheme and considered illegal, making it against Facebook's terms of agreement, according to Tech2.
"It's against Facebook's terms of agreement. 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.
Victims of the scam are also at risk of other online scams due to the release of their contact information to other grifters.
"We see that a lot with different types of fraud where - once people have fallen for one kind of scam - that their name and contact information gets sold to other people and that they get solicitations for other kinds of scams."
