Just been to the doctors for a BP check and the nurse has had an email from the local health authority warning about men in supermarkets going up to ladies, complimenting them on their perfume and asking if they'd like to smell their perfume products ....it's ether!!!  Once the ether affects the person smelling it, they steal any valuables they can including bags, purses & jewellry.

This has happened in local Tesco supermarkets, and no doubt they'll move on to others, not necessarily Tesco.

If anyone you don't know asks you to smell something, don't!

Blimey I must admit I would have declined the offer of smelling somebody I didn't know if was asked to :)

Sorry but that's an urban legend.:) See here: http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/perfume.asp
Nobody would be rendered unconcsious just by sniffing ether like you would perfume anyway, it takes a lot more than that -I've used ether a lot in the past and it never affected me at all.

How strange that the NHS email the nurse had actually mentions a specific local branch of Tesco! - I saw it myself.

But yes, after reading that link you posted, I did wonder about ether acting so quickly when she first told me about it, but never having used the stuff didn't ask!  .... I'll email that link to her, Thanks.

Have to agree TrishaH,

It isn't true, when I heard it last year or even the year before (you know how quickly time flies) I e-mailed everyone I knew to warn them, because it is believeable.  But it was not true, always think, if something as harrowing as this was happening, it would be in the papers and on the news, that is what I go by now, so many of these around.