Sou Sou or Scam? How to Spot a Blessing Loom

That is the US Federal Trade Commission’s test, almost word for word. Its warning about real and fake savings clubs describes a real one as a club where “you don’t earn interest, never get out more than you paid in, and there’s no reward for recruiting people to join”, and the fake ones as promising you will make more than you put in and depending on new recruits.

The pitch usually arrives as a post or a direct message on Instagram, Facebook or another social app, often from a friend. The scheme is drawn as a board, a flower or a loom:

1. Eight seats sit on the outside, with one name in the centre.
2. To take an outside seat you send a “gift” or “blessing”, often $100, to the person in the centre, usually through Venmo, PayPal or another payment app.
3. You are told to recruit new people. As others join, you move in towards the centre.
4. When you reach the centre, eight new people each send you their $100: $800 back on a $100 “blessing”.

Connecticut’s Attorney General described exactly this in an April 2020 warning: $100 to start, an $800 payout promised within days, money sent through Venmo and PayPal. The same scheme runs under other names, including the Circle Game, Money Board, Mandala, Giving Circle and gifting circle, cloud or table. The amounts change; a UK version charged £3,000 to join.

Every person paid in the centre needs eight new people paying in at the edge. So each layer of new members has to be eight times bigger than the one before it:

By the eleventh layer the scheme needs more new members than there are people on Earth. It stops long before that, when people run out of friends to invite. Whenever it stops, the newest layer is about seven in every eight people who ever joined, and every one of them has paid in and received nothing. The early few who were paid were paid with the newcomers’ money.

A real sou sou has no such arithmetic. Ten people paying $100 a round produce a $1,000 pot, ten rounds, ten payouts, and then it ends. Nobody new is needed, ever.

• You are promised more back than you put in, whatever it is called.
• You have to recruit people, or recruiting moves you up.
• The money is called a “gift” or a “blessing”. Calling it a gift does not change what it is; regulators treat these as pyramid schemes regardless.
• You are paying someone you have never met, or the group is mostly strangers.
• There is a countdown, a seat that will “go to someone else”, or pressure to decide today.
• You are asked to keep it quiet, use a nickname, or send money as “friends and family”.

Yes, in the places this app works and many others. A few of the authorities that have said so:

• United States. The FTC calls fake sou sous an illegal pyramid scheme. State attorneys general have warned about the blessing loom by name; Connecticut’s says these schemes violate its Unfair Trade Practices Act and may break criminal law.
• United Kingdom. Inviting people to join a chain-gift scheme, one where you pay other members and are encouraged to expect more back than you paid, is an offence under section 43 of the Gambling Act 2005, punishable by up to 51 weeks in prison in England and Wales. In 2014, nine people were convicted over “Give and Take”, a scheme of about 10,000 members who paid £3,000 each to join.
• Canada. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre says pyramid selling is illegal in Canada and names gifting circles as a common form.

Being an early member who got paid is not a defence: in many places, promoting the scheme or recruiting into it is the offence. This page explains what regulators have published; it is not legal advice.

• Don’t pay, and don’t recruit. If the invitation came from a friend, tell them what it is; they are usually a victim too, not the organiser.
• If you have paid, contact your bank or payment app straight away and tell them it was a scam. A payment you sent yourself is often hard to reverse, but the sooner you report it, the better the chance.
• Report it. In the US, at reportfraud.ftc.gov and to your state attorney general. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, at Report Fraud (it replaced Action Fraud in December 2025); in Scotland, call Police Scotland on 101. In Canada, tell your local police, then the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre online or on 1-888-495-8501. Elsewhere, your national consumer protection authority or police.

Not being a pyramid scheme does not make a circle risk-free. The two real risks are different ones: a member who takes an early pot and stops paying, and an organiser who holds everyone’s money and disappears with it. Both are about trust in a closed group, not about recruiting strangers. What a susu is covers those risks, and how to start a savings circle covers what to agree before anyone pays in.

The app runs the real thing and none of the other. A circle is a closed group you invite people into. The contribution and the payout order are fixed and visible to every member before anyone pays. Money moves between members through Stripe Connect, every member verifies their identity with Stripe first, and nobody, including us, holds the pot. Nobody is paid for recruiting.

You also get back slightly less than the pot, not more: a 5% platform fee (minimum $0.30) and Stripe’s processing costs come out of each payout, shown in the app before it is paid. Anything that promises you more than everyone put in is not a savings circle, in an app or out of one.

• What a susu is — the mechanics, a worked example, and the real risks.
• How to start a savings circle — choosing members, setting the amount, and handling a member who stops paying.
• Susu, ajo, esusu, tanda, partner hand — the real names for the real thing, and how they differ.