This one is aimed at women, although it has not happened to me one of my daughters friend's was approached and had her mobile phone stolen. Please read the email my mum sent me, I was already aware of this because my daughter warned me she is only 14 yrs. It has happened in our local Asda too.

I know not all of you are women that I am sending this to, but am hoping you will share this with your wives, daughters, mothers,
sisters, etc. Our world seems to be getting crazier by the day. Pipe bombs in mail boxes and sickos in parking lots with perfume. Be careful. I was approached yesterday afternoon around 5:30 PM in the ASDA carpark by two males asking what kind of perfume I was wearing. Then they asked if I'd like to sample some fabulous scent they were willing to sell me at very reasonable rate. I probably would have agreed had I not received an e-mail warning of a 'Wanna smell this neat perfume?' scam. The men continued to stand between parked cars, I guess to wait for someone else to hit on. I stopped a lady going towards them, pointing at them, and told her about how I was sent an e-mail at work about someone walking up to you at the malls or in carparks and asking you to SNIFF PERFUME that they are selling at a cheap price or at least compare to which one you like best. THIS IS NOT PERFUME...IT IS ETHER!  When you sniff it, you 'll pass out. They'll take your wallet, your valuables and heaven knows what else. If it were not for this e-mail, I probably would have sniffed the 'perfume', but thanks to the generosity of an e-mailing friend, I was spared whatever might have happened to me. I wanted to do the same for you.
PLEASE PASS THIS ALONG TO ALL YOUR WOMEN FRIENDS, AND PLEASE BE ALERT AND BE AWARE. IF YOU ARE A MAN AND RECEIVE THIS, PASS IT ON TO YOUR WOMEN FRIENDS.

Ladies, this happened to me yesterday and I didn't smell the perfume either, thanks to this email. This is true. Believe me, I know. I
was over by Big Lots in the carpark at lunch time when I was approached. So either day or night, it does not matter. There were 3 guys together when I was approached. I called the police. Like the email says above, LET EVERYONE KNOW ABOUT THIS - YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY, CO-WORKERS, whomever. It helped me. The first thing that popped into my head was this e-mail warning.

Take care Diane xx

good lord what a lucky escape you had thanks for the warning i will emaill my friends with this im sure it wont be the last time they try this hopefully police will catch them soon x

Diane this email is a hoax and occured initially in Australia a few years ago - it has never happened in the UK.  I'm sorry your daughters friend had her mobile phone stolen.

Diane, this is A HOAX that has been doing the rounds since at least 1999.

I agree it has been doing the rounds for a few years now, it is a hoax.

There is a website which tells you which stories are true and which aren't? Maybe someone could pop the link up again, before people who have not heard this hoax become frightened. :-)

I think that the best thing to remember is that real honest accounts are shown on the news and in the newspapers, if something this serious is not on the news it's not true, infact most e-mails we receive are not true. :-)

Thanks JG, that's the site!

> Diane this email is a hoax

The email might be a hoax I don't know. 
My daughter tells me this is how her friend's mobile was stolen, I live just outside London.

> good lord what a lucky escape you had thanks for the warning

This did not happen to me. I know it reads like that in the email, but I have not been approached.

>The email might be a hoax I don't know.

It is. It's word-for-word the same as the one on the Urban Legends website, Snopes, as in my link above. Your daughter has been fooled, albeit with good intentions.

It's ineresting that the first 'report' was of a robbery of cash in Mobile, Alabama, but now it's turned into the theft of a 'mobile' phone!

Thanks just took a quick look on there.
It was'nt explained the same as in the email, they apparently get you to smell card like in perfume shops abroad to test the scents.
She is only 14 years old and possibly been "had" bless her she was very afraid, I am just glad I can put her abit at ease.

Thanks again
Diane

oh its a hoax *shrug shrug* why do people make up such things i mean what is the point i dont get it, mind you my cousin sends me these silly emails that your ment to send to 20 other friends or be dommed in love for the rest of your life, or what ever i aways ignore them cant be bothered with this stuff,

> why do people make up such things i mean what is the point i dont get it,

Me either!

> mind you my cousin sends me these silly emails that your ment to send to 20 other friends or be dommed in love for the rest of your life, or what ever i aways ignore them cant be bothered with this stuff,

My mum does it to me forwards all her emails lol I think she is just pleased she knows how to email!
I especially don't like the send it to 15 people and make a wish it will come true rubbish I do just delete chain emails.

> why do people make up such things i mean what is the point i dont get it

Whether it is a hoax or not i am always glad to hear these as it makes me more wary. If i hadnt read some of these e mails i would probably have been a victim to some of these scams.

I dont forward on messages that ask to be sent to 18 people or you get run over by a bus in 12 hours from now :-)   But anything about personal safety is always worth sharing.

>If i hadnt read some of these e mails i would probably have been a victim to some of these scams.

Not when there's zero evidence that they've ever happened! ;-)

I hate them because they're a form of cyber-terrorism, designed to make innocent people fearful and unhappy.

> Not when there's zero evidence that they've ever happened! ;-)

Maybe they havent happened because people had read warning about similar dodgy situations :-)

> I hate them because they're a form of cyber-terrorism, designed to make innocent people fearful and unhappy.

Where do these stories come from in the first place?  Is there any evidence that they started with a real life event, a blend of fact and fiction OR or are they pure fiction?

Just curious as they seem to get 'repackaged' into a new version and recirculated every so often...

>Maybe they havent happened because people had read warning about similar dodgy situations

How can there be anything similar, in reality, to these outlandish fantasies?

You were told as a child not to get into strangers' cars, and to be polite but cautious with strangers, weren't you? Then that's all you need, not scaremongering.

I think they are referred to as 'Trolls', you get them all over the net....one example is people will issue a warning saying someone is a hacker and post their own pic on it and see how far it can spread...another is these scare stories, its just to see how popular they can make them really, no point other than for their own sad amusement really.

Snopes-Hoax

It is a hoax, but in reality should make people realise to be careful in every way. 

> You were told as a child not to get into strangers' cars, and to be polite but cautious with strangers, weren't you? Then that's all you need, not scaremongering.

Not all these 'scams' involve strangers and cars, and you shouldn't assume that everyone is taught certain things as children.

> It was'nt explained the same as in the email, they apparently get you to smell card like in perfume shops abroad to test the scents.
> She is only 14 years old and possibly been "had" bless her she was very afraid

Ahh poor thing.

Sniffing a bottle of ether will not knoock you out, let alone a drop of it on a card, it may give you a headache, but will not put you on the floor :)
I remeber using ether in A level biology when we were doing an experiment on inherited characteristic & dominant/recessive gnenes, using fruit flies. We poured ether onto cotton wool and it had to be held tightly over the top of the tiny little vessles that contained the little flies for a while before it knocked them out. We spent ages sitting over bottles of open ether, sorting out our little dozy flies into different groups and we never got knocked unconcious by it :)

I only wanted to add...if there are folks who are bad enough to even "think" up the hoax...there are people who will try it..either as a thought they've had on their own or as a result of reading the hoax e-mails...so it is still wise to be careful.....
Scare mongering or no....now it is in the back of all our minds we will hopefully know better if confronted with anything remotely similar.

>or as a result of reading the hoax e-mails

All the more reason not to publish them or pass them on ...

>> She is only 14 years old and possibly been "had" bless her she was very afraid
> Ahh poor thing.
>

When I spoke to her yesterday, and I explained all this, she said I was worried about you too mum because you go asda, ah bless her :-D.

> All the more reason not to publish them or pass them on ...

I apologise for posting it, but I only did so as my daughter was scared and she genuinely believed this was true.

I'm sure that the huge majority of people who forward it also genuinely believe it to be true :-) ; that's why the Snopes site is so helpful. All you need do is copy and paste part of the email into their search box, and if it's one of the ones doing the rounds it'll come up, and they'll say whether it's true or false.

I'm sure you're also very annoyed at the person who started it for scaring your daughter, who sounds like a lovely, caring girl who doesn't deserve to be misled.

> I'm sure that the huge majority of people who forward it also genuinely believe it to be true :-)

Absolutely.

> that's why the Snopes site is so helpful.

I have never heard of this site untill it was posted on here, see another reason why C.D is so fantastic! :-D

> I'm sure you're also very annoyed at the person who started it for scaring your daughter, who sounds like a lovely, caring girl who doesn't deserve to be misled.

I sure am, I can not understand what kind of kick or thrill people get out of doing something like this. :-(