Book cycle budding scam?
Companies such as ‘Bookmooch’ do book exchanges as their primary business. The difference in this situation is that on Bookmooch, you can select the books you would like to receive and give away. The pre- existing sites are more organized and rely less on social media than the current trend.
In third through fifth grade, many girls participated in sticker trading through the mail. It was a cute way for young children to learn how to use the mail system and write letters.
Senior Christina Caporale said, “It freaked my friends out a little bit, but I liked to get the stickers from my friends and my friend’s friends. It was honestly way less creepy than it sounded.”
This concept has now been advanced to older audiences and much heavier parcels.
On almost any social media platform, you can find people advertising for an international book exchange. The premise of this exchange is that you send a book to someone and you will receive up to 36 books in return.
’15 SHS alum Margaret Jordan posted on Facebook, “Hi friends, I’m participating in a book-chain experiment. You can be ANYWHERE in the world to do this and the further the better.’
You just have to buy one book (in English) and send it to ONE person and you will receive approximately 36 books in return. Let me know if you are interested and I will message you the details!”
This concept may sound ideal, receiving book recommendations from strangers. However, there are strong suspicions that this may in fact be a scam. People are worried about giving their address to strangers and wonder where the books come from.
Jordan explains how the process works, “ you would send a book to address #1, the person who gave your reference the link.”
This process goes on as you post on social media and you become address number 1 and number 2. Ultimately, the process works on referrals so the books you receive are not from total strangers, just from friends of friends.
