VIA SNOPES ( Please always check with Snopes or Hoax Slayer before passing on this type of rubbish.
“In late October 2015, social media users began sending and receiving solicitations to participate in a “secret sisters” gift exchange scheme. Posts on Facebook, Reddit, and several forums described a process that involved sending one present (commonly valued at $10) and receiving 36 in return. Participants who opted in to the “secret sister” exchange were instructed to send a gift to the first “sister” on the list, move the second on the list to the first spot, and put their own name into the second spot. Many of the postings warned naysayers and skeptics that their objections would be deleted from comment threads:
Welcome to our secret sister gift exchange! Here’s how it works:
1) Send one gift value at least $10 to secret sister #1 below.
2) Remove secret sister’s name from #1; then move secret sister #2 to that spot.
3) Add your name to #2 with your info.
4) Then send this info to 6 other ladies with the updated name info
5) Copy the secret sister request that I posted on my wall, to your own wall. If you cannot complete this within 1 week please notify me, as it isn’t fair to the ladies who have participated and are waiting for their own gifts to arrive. 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. Soon you should receive 36 gifts! What a deal, 36 gifts for giving just one! Be sure to include some information about yourself … some of your favorites. Seldom does anyone drop out because it’s so much fun to send a gift to someone you may or may not know … and of course it’s fun to receive. You should begin receiving gifts in about 2 weeks if you get your letters out to your 6 people right away.
The majority of “secret sister” gift exchange solicitations that arrived in our inbox definitively promised 36 randomly selected $10 gifts for each “sister,” a number that seemed to hinge on static participation levels for every individual group exchange. As a telling number of social media commenters pointed out, the idea was simply a repackaging of age-old chain letter gifting schemes, the pitfalls of which are both well-known and about as ubiquitous as the practice itself.
It’s worth noting that amid the myriad enticements for such initiatives on social media, many users expressed interest and committed to the exchanges. But while a handful of individuals claimed to have received a single gift, none reported an avalanche of $10 trinkets arriving at their doors. Had such a plan ever borne fruit, accounts of such success mysteriously remained virtually non-existent.”
