# DO not smell it!



## still learning (Jun 25, 2007)

Hello, A friend E-mail me a scam that is going on in the USA.

At truck stops,parking lots, and other places someone will ask you what kind of perfume/cologne you are wearing?  Then they will tell you we have expense brand perfume/colognes for sale.   Then they will ask you to smell this?   

By the time you wake-up.............your wallet,car and other valuables will be gone....women (even rape).

Either or some other kind of sustance will knock you out when you take a SMELL OF THAT STUFF!!!!
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Self defense lesson number one:  Learn NOT to smell !  Especially to strangers and alone.

2. If you do smell?  be prepare to wake up DEAD or find you wallet missing..and other things too..

3.To keep fish from smelling?  ( ? Cut of their nose )

4.I learn to use cheap stuff.....smell bad sometimes....BUT makes good self-defense.

5. Brut .....sometimes not strong enough....TAG .....women like to? ....chase me.....use only when you have my running shoes.

6.NOT brushing teeth is like smelling...........works all the time...

7. So if someone comes up to you and want to SMELL?   Keep your nose away.

In Hawaii ...we smell the ocean everyday....sometimes fish too....Aloha


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## tellner (Jun 25, 2007)

Before you post stuff like this do yourself and the rest of us a favor. Check snopes.com 

Doing a search for "perfume" the first item that came up was:



> No, the scenario described above isn't a real danger. No one has reported having been robbed in this manner, save for one woman in 1999 whose claim was suspect (for reasons we discuss below). This legend doesn't even really describe a plausible scenario because, despite what books and TV shows may depict, rendering a person unconscious from a mere sniff or two of some substance is not easy to do. Ether is nasty, volatile stuff that requires a great deal more than a few brief inhalations to knock a person out. In fact, it's hard to think of any substance that could produce the instant unconsciousness described here.
> 
> 
> This legend appears to have begun in 1999 with a widely-circulated Internet message
> ...


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## aedrasteia (Jun 25, 2007)

Oh gloom. This junk is still circulating.

Go to snpes.com or about.com/urbanlegends - do a search on 'perfume scam' or just learn about u.legends. There's hundreds. in classes I often have to spend much more time than i thought i would, answering 'what if?' questions based on these undead crap e-mail 'warnings'

go do the search. please. 

don't forward any more of these. Send the link to the de-bunking site to all the people you sent this message to, instead.

thank you. rant has ended


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## MA-Caver (Jun 25, 2007)

still learning said:


> Hello, A friend E-mail me a scam that is going on in the USA.
> 
> At truck stops,parking lots, and other places someone will ask you what kind of perfume/cologne you are wearing?  Then they will tell you we have expense brand perfume/colognes for sale.   Then they will ask you to smell this?
> 
> ...


If this were true... don't you think our government would've had the monopoly on this stuff?


Or at least the CIA??


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## jdinca (Jun 25, 2007)

MA-Caver said:


> If this were true... don't you think our government would've had the monopoly on this stuff?
> 
> 
> Or at least the CIA??


 
Maybe it's a federal fundraiser. The war on terror is an expensive one...


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## Carol (Jun 25, 2007)

Unless the would-be attackers are wearing gas masks, they would be knocked out, too, from their own toxin.

Anything that is toxic enough to quickly knock out someone smelling a substance from a jar also would be toxic enough to quickly knock out the person holding and uncapping the jar.
​


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## still learning (Jun 26, 2007)

Hello, I guess I jump to quick......It was on my E-mail and any way....even if not true....it sounds like it could happen.

Thank-you for letting me know this was a false e-mail.  I hope this has NOT happen to anyone.

Scams can happen to anyone....be careful always...........I can still smell the ocean....or is it my old gi?  UM?    Aloha


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## Tez3 (Jun 26, 2007)

Sneeze... can't smell a thing... got rotten cold... sniff...sneeze....aaagh!


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## Drac (Jun 26, 2007)

Carol Kaur said:


> Anything that is toxic enough to quickly knock out someone smelling a substance from a jar also would be toxic enough to quickly knock out the person holding and uncapping the jar.


A great point...


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## bushidomartialarts (Jun 26, 2007)

And here I thought this thread was going to be about practicing MMA in the summertime.


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## CoryKS (Jun 26, 2007)

bushidomartialarts said:


> And here I thought this thread was going to be about practicing MMA in the summertime.


 
I thought it was going to be a rebuttal to Spinal Tap's Smell The Glove.


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## crushing (Jun 26, 2007)

Carol Kaur said:


> Unless the would-be attackers are wearing gas masks, they would be knocked out, too, from their own toxin.​
> 
> Anything that is toxic enough to quickly knock out someone smelling a substance from a jar also would be toxic enough to quickly knock out the person holding and uncapping the jar.​


 
In other words, he who dealt it, _smelt_ it.


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## tshadowchaser (Jun 26, 2007)

ok all that being said about an urban legend is good but lets just look at another side of this .  You have been approached by  a stranger and asked to smell  something. or even look at something, do you really want to do it?  If you put your head down to smell whatever it is you open yourself up to many attacks most of which you will not see coming.  You have let that person get with in reaching, grabbing, holding position of you, do you want that? What they may have for you to smell may not knock you out but is it safe to smell? Why put yourself in a position where they may have the upper hand to begin with?


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## Kacey (Jun 26, 2007)

tshadowchaser said:


> ok all that being said about an urban legend is good but lets just look at another side of this .  You have been approached by  a stranger and asked to smell  something. or even look at something, do you really want to do it?  If you put your head down to smell whatever it is you open yourself up to many attacks most of which you will not see coming.  You have let that person get with in reaching, grabbing, holding position of you, do you want that? What they may have for you to smell may not knock you out but is it safe to smell? Why put yourself in a position where they may have the upper hand to begin with?



This is a very good point.  Whether the particular situation presented is an urban legend or not, it is a good object lesson in be wary of the approach of strangers - and is, in fact, quite close to what many child abusers use to lure children into their cars, such as asking for directions or help finding a lost puppy, offering candy, and so on.  The situation originally presented is not much different from other situations in which a child or adult has been abducted.


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## theletch1 (Jun 26, 2007)

In all the years I've been a truck driver I've learned never ever to smell anything in a truckstop parking lot...have you ever eaten at one of those places?!  The object lesson is still, indeed, a good one and a very basic one.  Situational awareness first and foremost.  I know that we often teach concepts that can, if taken to an extreme, make you paranoid when it comes to being approached by strangers but you can simply be aware of possible danger without going on high alert.  Today, on the way home from work, I stopped to fuel up my jeep.  While I was fueling I was approached by a fellow asking if I had a jug of water or coolant as his car was overheating.  I saw him approaching in the reflection of my window so was no surprised by him.  I kept my hand on the nozzle as we spoke (pull the nozzle from the car and spray him down in an emergency) and did a quick scan of the lot.  Sure enough there was a car with out of state plates at one of the pumps with the hood up and steam still drifting up from the engine.  Since I do a good bit of off roading with my vehicle I always carry spare parts, tools and (as luck would have it) a premixed gallong of coolant.  I kept the back corner of my vehicle between the two of us, popped the back hatch and grabbed a gallong of coolant.  He thanked me, offered to pay (which I refused) and went about his business.  Long story, I know, but the point is that I know that one ploy used is the "I've broken down and need help" routine.  I was aware of my surroundings by using the reflections in my window and peripheral vision, kept myself at the ready to defend myself until I could verify his story without going into super-hyper-high alert status.


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## tellner (Jun 26, 2007)

Kacey, there's a saying we had in our women's self defense classes. "Don't spend so much time turning over rocks looking for goblins that you miss the bear standing on the path." Awareness is just a tool like any other. If you're looking for the wrong things or obsessing over the low-probability things you can blind yourself to the greater real risks. In this case there is no risk whatsoever. Wasting any headspace at all on it will take attention away from something else that is potentially important. 

Strangers with candy or offering rides? Bad. But look at what really happens. The most common victimizers are the ones who are in regular contact with the victim. The teacher. The church youth pastor. The relative. Which is worth spending _more_ time on with your children, something that is very rare or something that is more common? Do you want them reasonably cautious or paralyzed with unreasoning fear?

Consider rape. Your home or the rapist's home are the most common places for it to happen. The vast majority of rapists are acquaintances of the target. People with magic knockout drops that don't exist in parking lots are so far down the list of realistic threats that it is counterproductive to even consider it for longer than it takes to look up the debunking. Besides, if you have even normal perception something will seem fishy about the whole thing.

I could go on. The urban legend about gang initiations and flashing headlights doesn't carry the lesson "Be on the alert. There are bad people out there." It actually reduces real awareness because you are looking for something that isn't there. We already know that there are bad people. If we take lies and unfounded rumors seriously we will be looking for the wrong thing.

In a nutshell: Get the real facts. Find out what the actual risks are and prepare for the most likely contingencies. Don't bother with BS that isn't real. Past a certain point awareness becomes paranoia which can lead you much further astray. A lot of the time the answer is to be less afraid, not more.


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## Kacey (Jun 26, 2007)

As a school teacher, I am well aware of these facts.  However, the fact that the situations I describe are not the majority of such situations does not negate the fact that such events happen, and that people should, therefore, be aware of them.  If you choose to ignore them, or not focus on them, because they are not the most common form of abduction, then that is your choice.

I teach my TKD students to recognize when something is potentially wrong.  I teach them - all of them, not just the kids - to have someone they trust that they can go to in a time of trouble; I have been honored that some of them have chosen me as that person.   As a TKD instructor, I have been blessed that this particular type of situation has not come up with any of my TKD students. 

As a school teacher, I do my best to instill trust and respect into my relationship with my middle school students, and based on that, I have been the person that some of my students have come to in abuse situations, and have had to report those events to the appropriate agency.  I have had to watch as the students who trusted me with their horrible secret rant and rage and scream their hatred of me because it was (in their minds) my fault that they were being taken away from their homes... and I have had the fortune to have been contacted by some of those students years later, thanking me for my actions and apologizing for their own.  

I am, I think, rather more aware of the potential concerns than you are, having had to deal with them first hand.  Nonetheless, I will not ignore a lesser danger simply because a greater danger exists.


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## Big Don (Sep 3, 2007)

The combination of the thread title: DO not smell it! and the name of the topic starter: Still Learning is nothing short of classic!


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