What Is the Perfume Hoax?

There are so many stories that circulate by word of mouth or through email concerning warnings about dangerous situations that occur in life very unexpectedly from normal seeming circumstances. Many of these are what people call urban legends. The perfume hoax is one of these.

The perfume hoax is an urban legend that began in around 1970. The tale starts with the story of a person who was stopped and asked what kind of perfume they were wearing.

The person that stopped him or her then proceeds to offer a perfume for them to smell and claims that there is a knock-off perfume that he can buy at a significantly reduced price.

The story then continues to tell the tale of how the main character who was offered the perfume to smell was instead given a bottle with ether in it. The ether then knocks out the main character and the other person steals their wallet, money or other valuables. Then the thief disappears.

Spread of the Hoax

This story has moved locations over its history and has been claimed to have occurred in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Scotland. Each version of the story has small details changed to make it more believable; for example, locations cited in the story are usually changed to reflect businesses or landmarks that are familiar to the locale where the story is being told.

The retelling of the hoax in each of these regions also has slightly altered versions of the story. Some of the locations where the perfume theft allegedly happened include mall parking lots or large parking lots at big events, while other thefts allegedly just happened on the street. Some of the stories involved two men or two women offering the perfume test, but others involved two men and two women in a car pulling up to the main character of the story.

Urban Legends

Urban legends are stories that circulate about some embarrassing, horrific or ironic situation that happened to someone else. The story is told in a way that it is meant to be believed. It is to be taken as fact and the listener is meant to believe that the incidents happened to a real person. The stories are most often framed to be a cautionary tale.

No real evidence is offered to back up the story, but through skillful storytelling, there are enough facts shared to convince the listener to believe the tale. Most tales are communicated by person-to-person telling, or today are mass distributed through computer hoaxes on the Internet or fax machine. Urban legends are considered to be the contemporary folklore of today. Just as in folklore of the past, each telling or retelling of the tale results in small changes or embellishments to the tale.

How the Story Ends

Each story usually tells of how the main character doesn’t fall for the hoax because they received this warning in her email or was told by a friend about the hoax being perpetrated by thieves in the area.

This urban legend is meant to feed on people’s fears of being robbed or accosted by strangers. The stories are usually started in areas that have had a crime spree or in which a lot of crimes have occurred.

Be wary of believing just anything you receive from an unknown source and always attempt to verify the information before taking it as gospel. There are a number of sites on the Internet that attempt to check out these tales and verify their truth. Snopes.com is one of the largest such sites and stays current with the hoaxes and scams being perpetrated by email messages.

Now that you know about the perfume hoax and how to check out urban legends, you can avoid falling for this particular urban legend.