Or by her participating that she is knowingly involving herself in a scam. Which, yeah, it’s just books - but it’s pretty obviously a pyramid.
No shame if you don’t see how it’s a scam, the cozy blanket and glass of wine are meant to throw you, and they chose 36 because it’s a confusing enough number where you don’t think too much about how it grows.
She gives one book to her upline. She then sends out post to 36 more people to give her 36 books. Each one of them then needs to find 36 people each, which is now 1296 people in that level if they each want 36 books. Thus the exponential pyramid. Of course there is zero way each of them will find that many people, let alone the levels below that. It’s a scam that benefits those higher up, and the ones lower will likely not receive anything.
Of course she sees nothing wrong with that. She said “Sometimes I get books, sometimes I don’t, that’s just part of the game”. Which… it’s not a game when it’s real money being passed around.
On top of that, whenever we see a pyramid scheme we should be stamping it out - hard. Folks, please spot the signs and point them out. Don’t be afraid to comment on posts calling them out as scams.
Edit: To be clear the idea of a growing book exchange isn’t a bad one, as explained in the comments though the way to make it not a scam is to make it 1:1. You either send a book and receive a book, or if they like the 36 number, you change it to “I’ll send a book to whoever sends me a book!”. Then it’s a true book exchange.
I kinda like this idea; on a one-to-one basis where the maths works out that is.
At that point I’d say it would be easier to start a book club, and instead of following some dooha’s list from up-on-high, the members just share their favorites.
The idea of an anonymous book exchange is fun - but the way to do it fairly and not as a scam would be to say “whoever sends me a book I’ll send one back!”. That would remove the pyramid from the equation, everyone would be guaranteed a book back for everyone they sent.
How is money being made in this? I don’t get it. It’s books- not money.
Just get in the moment
Plot twist: The founder of this pyramid-shaped scheme is Jeff Bezos, since he’ll profit from every book sold regardless of where it ends up.
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This is a bizarre scheme, i would not want to receive 1296 books, let alone however many the top gets.
You don’t. You just get the “up to 36”. It’s not a pyramid scheme where the goods all flow to the top.
I have this great angle for stocking my new bookstore…
So its the publisher reaping all of the $$? Peddling pirated books? 36 must be some of break even point for the lower levels but who knows
To me, the 36 just seems like a semi-plausible number that’s both enough to be enticing and not so much to be daunting or discrediting. I don’t think there’s any real foundation in the logistics of the scheme, it’s simply a marketing decision.
It’s a scam that benefits those higher up, and the ones lower will likely not receive anything.
Who is higher up? Who benefits from you buying 1 book to send to a random person and how? Maybe I don’t even buy a new one; I just send out an old one I already had. Or is there more to it than the image shows and you’re supposed to be buying a book from a specific supplier?
This seems more like a “pay it forward” gift exchange than a scam.
Pay it forward would be fine if it was 1-1, you gift a book to one person and you get one in return. The scam is that you get people in thinking if they gift one they’ll get more than one back. Of course they probably won’t, it’ll quickly collapse.
Pay it forward things aren’t 1-1 either. You’re not guaranteed to even get anything back yourself most of the time. It’s just to feel good about yourself. Like paying for the people behind you at a drive-thru.
But I can see how this gives the impression that you will.
but pay it forward can work in theory
this can’t even work in theory because books entering the system 1 at a time and leaving the system 36 at a time requires 35 books to be conjured out of thin air
I think the idea here is that 37 people send 1 book each and you could be the recipient of the other 36 you didn’t send since you’re all on the same list and everyone is choosing a recipient at random to send their book to.
how could you know the total participant count is 37 ahead of time if you’re currently looking for sign ups
also, a book exchange of 37 people doesn’t strike me as particularly “huge”
I think that’s where it becomes a scheme instead of a generosity thing. The expectation that you could win out, that you will get more than you put in. Paying it forward you go in not expecting anything, but that’s not the way this is structured.
Oh this gave me a nice nostalgia hit! Back in the late 60s I think it was, there was a similar scheme where you sent a dollar to the address at the top of a list of ten names, added your name to the bottom of the list and sent the list to ten other people. There were various other chain letter things going around, threatening a curse if you didn’t pass them on, but this was a specific cash one. I had quite an argument with the idiot who sent it to me - he said the chain wouldn’t work if I broke it. You were supposed to end up with hundreds of dollars.
Yes, my friend did several of those in the early 90s. He mailed many dollars. Never did he get a dollar.
That’s a pyramid scheme
While the authenticity of this is dubious, I don’t think OP knows what a pyramid scheme is…
Look up MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) schemes if you need a reference point.
Just because the stakes are low doesn’t mean it’s not a pyramid scheme. You buy in, and then you recruit others to buy in by paying you. Pyramid.
Now, if it was a ping that said “send me a book and I’ll send you one back!” That would be a fun way to do a book exchange. But it’s not, there’s no reciprocation.
If you need any proof that pyramid schemes will never go away, just look at the number of downvotes.
I know, it’s disheartening, but still. I know I’m personally more compromised then most. My mother lost everything in Mary Kay, an MLM - and I mean everything. Lost the house, car was repo’d, all on the promise that she kept getting that if she hustled harder she’d be a millionaire. She now works at Walmart working paycheck to paycheck in her 70s.
Because of that I’ll call out scams like this whenever I can. People are dumb, and gullible, and don’t see that if it’s too good to be true it probably is. There’s 2 big types of dissenters I’ve seen in this thread. First group don’t think it’s a big deal (and in my point of view it means you don’t care as long as you get something out of it, just don’t think about the people who lost below you. Second group are the ones don’t see how it’s a scam at all. Both of those groups are prime MLM targets, and while the stakes are low here it’s important to know the signs so you can see it when the stakes are high.
It’s a pyramid scheme that doesn’t appear to involve money.
An MLM for books would be charging for the books and an enrollment fee. Typically in a pyramid scheme the buy-in is the fee and nothing ever comes back to the enrollee that isn’t enrollment fees from others.
In this case the books are the enrollment fee.
I ended up buying someone 36 books myself, to compensate them for me refusing to participate in this chain letter/pyramid scheme.
I think that’s more of a ponzi scheme that a pyramid scheme
How so?
You might have to literally draw it out. Just use 2 books instead of 36.
Of course there is zero way each of them will find that many people, let alone the levels below that. It’s a scam that benefits those higher up, and the ones lower will likely not receive anything.
And part of the scam is to tell people that there’s still time to be one of the early higher ups scamming other people!
This can be a marketing/scam strategy, you send a new book, and they send their marketed(marketing) or old (scam) book to your supposed secret friend, then re-sell your new book.
I get that everyone is looking for a scam angle here but have we ever stopped to consider just regular old human stupidity? This sounds like something one of my co workers would come up with.
As with most things, I’m betting on the people who made it knew it exactly, and a lot of other stupid people jumped at the idea.
Imagine having to read 36 books that people stupid enough to participate in this would have chosen for you. Congrats! Here’s 18 copies of The Secret and 18 copies of the bible.
Yeah my immediate thought was what to do with duplicates
The Fault in Our Stars
The Fault in Our Pyramid Scheme
How the hell is this a pyramid scheme? Do you people have brain damage? Or is just that the average lemming is in middle school? Buy book, send book, receive book. No money or promises of wealth involved. It says “a maximum of” meaning that you may get more than one, I guess, if someone wanted to buy more copies than was asked of them. Shitty math doesn’t equal a pyramid scheme in the same way lying doesn’t equal “gaslighting.”
Pyramid scheme, not profit scheme.
Pyramid because the shape is a pyramid.
The first person, the one who sent out the original picture, received X books and sent none.
The next layer sent one book, and possibly received up to 36.
But those 36 each need 36 new people. It’s impossible. You’d hit the population of the earth in just a few rounds.
You send book to one person. You ask many people to send you a book so you get many books. Each of those people, to get the same deal, have to then find many people each themselves to not lose anything. The reason it’s a pyramid is because the last people to ask will receive nothing, they will be the bottom of the pyramid.
It’s not “shitty math”, it’s just math. There is no guarantee that by you sending a book you will also receive a book. The wording is misleading, it is not “Maximum 36”, it’s “Maybe you get one back, but probably not”.
That’s the scam part - you encourage someone to join in on the premises that you are going to get things if they buy in, and if they do it they can too! Except more than likely they won’t be able to, and all they did was give you a free book.
