You can buy a required "Hands-free" headset for your cell phone for $1-Fiction!

You Can Buy a Required "Hands-free" Headset For Your Cell Phone for $1 -Fiction!

Summary of eRumor:
This email warns that cell phones used in cars will be required to "hands free" after January 1, 2001. It comments on the high cost of headsets then offers to sell you one for $1. It also includes an attached picture.

The Truth:
The email is a joke and that is obvious if you look at the picture. Copies of the email are being circulated without the picture, however, so the reader is left with the impression that everybody in the U.S. is going to be required to use hands-free phones after January 1, 2001, and that there is a really inexpensive solution.

This is complicated by the fact that there are some localities that are outlawing cell phones in cars without hand-free devices, but there is no blanket regulation that will affect everybody on January 1, 2001.

The picture that is supposed to be attached is of a man with a cell phone jammed against his ear and that is being held in place by a rubber band.

Click here to see the picture

A real example of the story as it has been circulated:

Subject: cell phone notice

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but starting Jan 1, 2001 you will no longer be able to use a cell phone while driving unless you have a "hands free" adapter. I went to Circuit City and they wanted $50 for a headset with boom microphone for my cell phone.

I have come up with an alternative, working through Office Depot.

These kits are compatible with any mobile phone and one size fits
all. I paid $0.08 each for buying in quantity. I’m selling them for
$1.00. I tried them out on Erickson, Motorola, & Nokia phones and
they worked perfectly. A photo is attached. Take a look and let me
know if you want one. (See attached photo)