Warning from Wiltshire Trading Standards over Secret Santa pyramid scheme
It tries to convince people they will get 36 presents in exchange for a small investment.
We are being urged not to fall for a festive themed pyramid scheme scam currently circulating on Facebook.
Known as the The 'Secret Sister Gift Exchange' it encourages people to make a small investment which promises 36 gifts from strangers in return.
Wiltshire Trading Standards has highlighted the scheme, saying that while it sounds feasible, it works like a chain letter and ends up with far too many participants meaning most people don't receive anything at all.
The exchange is mostly organised through Facebook groups, and encourages people to send a low-value gift to a person whose name and address is at the top of a long list of participants.
Once they've sent the gift, they remove the person in first place, and replace it with the person in second place.
As the invites spread and more people receive the list, the idea is that each participant gets up to 36 gifts as more join the exchange.
In a post on Facebook, Wiltshire Trading Standards said:
"As more and more people join, the number of people theoretically involved swells to far more than would ever take part - if the first 36 each invite six people, the total number of participants is 216.
"If all of those people do it, the number inflates to 1,296.
"By only the tenth stage of the process, over 60 million people are involved.
"Those who start these schemes or enter in the second round do stand a small chance of actually receiving something - but it's almost impossible for those who join later to ever reach the top, and as the scheme fizzles out, they receive nothing in return.
"Like most other pyramid schemes, it promises huge returns on a small initial investment. Not only are pyramid schemes mathematically impossible they're also illegal in the UK."