snopes.com: HIV Needles on Gas Pump Handles

Claim: Service station customers are getting stuck by HIV-loaded syringes affixed to gas pump handles.

Status: False.

Examples:

[Collected via e-mail, 2000]

My name is Captain Abraham Sands of the Jacksonville, Florida Police Department. I have been asked by state and local authorities to write this email in order to get the word out to car drivers of a very dangerous prank that is occurring in numerous states.

Some person or persons have been affixing hypodermic needles to the underside of gas pump handles. These needles appear to be infected with HIV positive blood. In the Jacksonville area alone there have been 17 cases of people being stuck by these needles over the past five months. We have verified reports of at least 12 others in various states around the country.

It is believed that these may be copycat incidents due to someone reading about the crimes or seeing them reported on the television. At this point no one has been arrested and catching the perpetrator(s) has become our top priority.

Shockingly, of the 17 people who where stuck, eight have tested HIV positive and because of the nature of the disease, the others could test positive in a couple years.

Evidently the consumers go to fill their car with gas, and when picking up the pump handle get stuck with the infected needle. IT IS IMPERATIVE TO CAREFULLY CHECK THE HANDLE of the gas pump each time you use one. LOOK AT EVERY SURFACE YOUR HAND MAY TOUCH, INCLUDING UNDER THE HANDLE.

If you do find a needle affixed to one, immediately contact your local police department so they can collect the evidence.

PLEASE HELP US BY MAINTAINING A VIGILANCE AND BY FORWARDING THIS EMAIL TO ANYONE YOU KNOW WHO DRIVES. THE MORE PEOPLE WHO KNOW OF THIS THE BETTER PROTECTED WE CAN ALL BE.

[Collected via e-mail, 2006]

East Coast - Warning!
In Florida and other places on the East Coast a group of people are putting HIV/AIDS infected and filled needles underneath gas pump handles, so when someone reaches to pick it up and put gas in their car, they get stabbed with it. 16 people have been a victim of this crime so far and 10 tested HIV positive. Instead of posting that stupid crap about how your love life will suck for years to come of you don't re-post, post this. It's important to inform people, even if you don't drive, a family member might, and what if they were next? CHECK UNDER THE HANDLE BEFORE YOU GRAB IT!!! IT MIGHT SAVE YOUR LIFE! Tell as many people as you can about this serious issue!

Variations:

In June 2001, hoaxsters altered the text of the leg-pull to place Captain Abraham Sands with the police department in Buffalo, New York. (He's fictitious there, too.)

In November 2004, Captain Abraham Sands of various places became Sheriff Ken Irwin of the Yakima County Sheriff's Office, with the tamperings supposedly taking place in the Yakima/Union Gap areas.

In April 2008, the Niagara Regional Police Service in Welland, Ontario was inundated with calls from concerned citizens after a variation of the warning indicated such attacks were taking place in that region and urged folks to contact a particular NRP civilian crime analyst. (The e-mail contained that person's name and phone number.) NRP responded by posting this denial on 8 May 2008.

Origins: This hoax urging caution when Gas pump

pumping gas appeared on the Internet in early June 2000. In common with other AIDS-infected needle scares (syringe attacks in movies houses and dance clubs and contaminated needles in payphone coin returns), it plays upon our fear of contracting this dread disease through the pursuit of ordinary and harmless activities.

There is no Abraham Sands with the Jacksonville Police Department — someone just invented a name to make this "warning" look authoritative. No newspaper stories from that city made any mention of Sands, which is unusual (to say the least) about a department's spokesperson; Jacksonville is served by a sheriff's office, not a police department; a phone call to the Jacksonville Sheriff produced the response that they'd never heard of Abraham Sands; and he wasn't listed with the rest of the personnel on the City of Jacksonville

Sheriff's Office web site. No news stories out of Florida confirm the e-mail's claim that 17 people had been injured by these attacks, the City of Jacksonsville Sheriff's Office said the whole thing was a hoax, and the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta stated they were not aware of any cases where HIV had been transmitted by a needle-stick injury outside of a health care setting.

Although there have been a few isolated reports of copycat pranksters leaving needles in public places (including gas pumps) in the wake of this hoax (most recently in Tucson, Arizona, in March 2007), none of those incidents has involved a needle bearing any traces of HIV. No matter how it is reworded, the "Captain Abraham Sands" message is naught but another darn fool hoax dreamed up by someone intent upon enjoying the sight of people thrown into a panic over nothing.

Barbara "selectively canard of hearing" Mikkelson

Additional information:

Calls About E-Mail Hoax Flood Sheriff's Office
(Florida Times-Union)

Last updated: 10 May 2008

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Sources:

Chapin, Veronica. "Calls About E-Mail Hoax Flood Sheriff's Office.": The Florida Times-Union. 22 June 2000.
Eisley, Matthew. "E-Mail Hoax, Subsequent Callers Impede N.C. State Bar's Work.": The [Raleigh] News and Observer. 22 June 2000 (p. B1).
KVOA-TV [Tucson, AZ]. "Woman Pricked by Hidden Needle.": 27 March 2007.
United Press International. "E-Mail Hoax Keeps Florida Deputies Busy.": 22 June 2000.