This urban legend has been circulating in emails since the late 1990s. There are many different versions of it, but basically the story is that groups of men and women are approaching women, usually in shopping mall parking lots, and offering them samples of perfume to sniff, supposedly with the intention of selling them bottles of inexpensive perfume. But when the unsuspecting woman sniffs the perfume samples offered, it knocks her out and when she wakes up later, she finds that she has been robbed of everything she had.

From almost everything I have read on this subject, this particular urban legend appears to be false. There was, however, one story officially reported to the Mobile Alabama Police Department in November, 1999, by a woman named Bertha Johnson who claimed that she was "rendered unconscious after smelling an unknown substance" by someone who approached her in a bank parking lot. She claimed that when she awoke, she found that she had been robbed of $800, $500 of which was her own money and $300 of which belonged to her employer. She was apparently tested for the presence of foreign substances in her body, and the tests turned up nothing. So, whether or not her story was, in fact, true, is debated to this day.

Whether or not this truly happened to Ms. Johnson, the story has taken on a life of its own over the Internet, with many different versions of this story being repeated through email circulation and articles written on many different sites. Some of these stories come from women who say they were approached by strangers who claimed to be selling perfume but for various reasons, the women said that they were not interested and didn't sniff the samples offered. They then claim that the strangers acted suspiciously but left them alone to safely go on their way. Although many of these stories are likely to be true, whether or not the strangers were attempting to knock them out with an unknown substance (commonly said to be ether) is impossible to determine, since these stories come from women who did not sniff the possibly offending substance.

I, personally, am unsure what to make of this story. Is it possible that criminals are attempting to do this? I suppose it is. Although it is said that it takes a lot more than one sniff of ether to knock a victim out, so it is rather doubtful that this could be done with ether. But is this probable? Unlikely, since the only case officially reported is as full of holes as swiss cheese. The rest of the stories circulating were either written by women who did not sniff the perfume samples offered (so they have no way of knowing if the samples were legitimate or not) or bear the standard earmarks of an urban legend because they "really happened" to a friend of a friend of a friend.

So, my best advice regarding this particular story (and, in fact, in all areas of life) is that people should exercise caution when out in the world. Like it or not, there are people around us on occasion who have less than altruistic intent toward others. Trust your instincts. If someone approaches you with perfume samples or for any other reason that makes you uncomfortable, simply say no and walk away.