A Shocking Mobile Call...

I often receive e-mails from people who are either, just forwarding the latest chain mail, urban legend, hoax or scam e-mail, or they send them to me to ask my opinion as I have seen many of these types of e-mails over the last 15 years and can usually spot the real ones from the fake ones very quickly.

So, yesterday I was sent the following in an e-mail by someone asking me if it was a hoax or not?:



What do you think, real or hoax?

Before I give you my answer, I would like to bring to your attention the following data:

• Most phones use power adapters that step down the voltage from standard mains [usually in the range of 110-240 Volts] to significantly lower [usually in the range of 3-12 Volts], not only that these power adapters usually have very low ampage [a quick look at several of the ones I have on hand shows that 200ma is fairly typical].



• There have been a number of reports of exploding mobile phones [well actually batteries] over the last few years.



• Most phone manufacturer instruction manuals contain information which state that it is perfectly safe to use a mobile phone while it is being recharged.

My conclusion is that if this did happen then the phone and/or the power adapter were faulty or damaged and that this caused the effect allegedly witnessed, either that of the building that the person was in at the time suffered from a lightning strike which fed into the mains circuit. However, no such data is supplied and therefore it is almost impossible to corroborate or give any credence to this report. I therefore conclude that it is a hoax.

If you still think it is real and not a hoax, then I'd suggest you read the full debunk which can be found here:
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/cellcharge.asp