Scam Types dot Com

I said to Aruna yesterday that I have hundreds of email hoaxes saved in my email program. As they seem to be proving popular, I thought I would continue posting them, even though some of them are quite old now.

This one, however, is quite fresh in the UK - I guess it may be related to the sales increases that air fresheners receive in the run up to Christmas.

Subject: Safety warning

Friends, My brother and his wife learned a hard lesson this last week. Their house burned down…nothing left but ashes. They have good insurance, so the home will be replaced and most of the contents. That is the good news. However, they were sick when they found out the cause of the fire.

The insurance investigator sifted through the ashes for several hours. He had the cause of the fire traced to the master bathroom. He asked my sister-in-law what she had plugged in in the bathroom. She listed the normal things. …curling iron,blow dryer. He kept saying to her, “No, this would be something that would disintegrate at high temperatures.” Then, my sister-in-law remembered she had a Glade Plug-in in the bathroom. The investigator had one of those “Aha” moments. He said that was the cause of the fire. He said he has seen more home fires started with the plug in type room fresheners than anything else. He said the plastic they are made from is a THIN plastic. He said in every case there was nothing left to prove that it even existed. When the investigator looked in the wall plug, the two prongs left from the plug-in were still in there.

My sister-in-law had one of the plug-ins that had a small night light built in it. She said she had noticed that the light would dim….and then finally go out. She would walk in a few hours later, and the light would be back on again. The Investigator said that the unit was getting too hot, and would dim and go out rather than just blow the light bulb. Once it cooled down, it would come back on. That is a warning sign.

The investigator said he personally wouldn’t have any type of plug in fragrance device anywhere in his house. He has seen too many burned down homes.

Thought I would warn you all. I had several of them plugged in my house. I immediately took them all out.

The above email is completely untrue - plug-in air fresheners are quite safe. Some research would seem to indicate that there are no known cases of such an item ever causing a house fire.