Ether perfume hoax email
So, my Wife received a hoax email. We get a lot of these so I always go straight to google, and try to see if it’s a known hoax. It is so I helpfully told the sender and the other recipients. One of the stunningly clever ones asked…
“How do you know it’s a hoax?”
Well, I don’t KNOW it is a hoax. I believe it is a hoax though. Because to believe it is true also requires me to believe that…
Criminals the world over have tried a slight variation on a theme and the would-be-victims have relayed their worrysome ordeal in such a way that it has found its way into a rich variety of email forms with a remarkable number of words and phrases in common.
Or, there is only a small band of dedicated criminals trying the same scam whilst globetrotting and, judging by the prodigious number of near-misses, being very bad at the criminal game while still being able to fund their travels. A “Whicker’s Gang” if you will. If an email comes to light where the victim is duped by a small group of elderly, charming men wearing horn rimmed glasses and smart blazers you’ll know I’m right.
Or, this is a crime pandemic that Interpol, The FBI, our own home office and regional police forces deem so unimportant that none of us have ever seen a poster, tv ad, crimestoppers, window sticker or a sign in a car park or an appeal from whoever that bloke is who says “Don’t have nightmares”.
Or, despite the fact that there are apparently several perpetrators, instead of rushing the victim and bundling them into the car they send just one of their number to go do it using some Ether and a dubious story. Lots of things to go wrong there. For one thing, Ether is heavier than air so you will need to give it a pretty good sniff to make sure it gets up your snozzle instead of meandering over the neck of the bottle and falling to the floor; secondly – and I expect to be put right by some medical type on the cc list, but what the hell, let’s live dangerously – my lay person’s understanding of Ether is that one gets high, possibly in an explosive and troubling way for some time before becoming compliant and finally, helpless and unconscious. Not very efficient on the abduction front is it?
So, that’s why I (and people who collect these things and put them on hoax slayer et al to help others) believe it’s a hoax. Because it just doesn’t sound plausible. Does anyone think it does sound plausible, really?
No offence to Alan Whicker by the way. I like him. I’m sure if one were to be abducted in the style of Alan Whicker it would be charming and he’d probably apologise afterwards. Of course he’d probably use sherry instead of Ether.