A chronicle & analysis
It is October 2018. We are now experiencing the fourth major wave of warnings about incorrect smoke detector inspectors. What it's about: People send warnings via WhatsApp and Facebook that there are people in their local area or even nationwide who are working their way from house to house and supposedly want to check whether the legally required smoke detectors are present.
Interestingly, these alerts always come in waves, causing confusion and anxiety at their peak times. The first wave of these reports occurred in January 2016. This is their original form:
We just received a report internally from the fire department...there are people on the move who are working their way from house to house and want to check whether the smoke detectors, which have been legally required since January, are there...don't let them in and call the police...an organized criminal gang!!! !!!

This status message, as you can read it, is quite something. How it came about, where it came about, who wrote it will probably never be known. However, we can say what has become of it: It has mutated into one of the most difficult chain letters we know of, because on the one hand the warning against this variant of the grandchild trick is certainly commendable, but on the other hand it also poses certain problems.
chronology
In January 2016…
This small chain letter mutated into a mass warning. People sent this warning via WhatsApp or Facebook. The reason and hour of birth is probably the smoke detector requirement for private apartments, which was (and is still being) introduced in the individual federal states in different years.
It cannot therefore be ruled out that fraudsters will take advantage of people's uncertainty about smoke detector requirements at this time and gain access to apartments in this way. That sounds plausible and should have a certain chance of success, at least in the immediate period AFTER the respective introduction.
If we stay with the birth of the chain letter, let's stay with January 2016. In Bremen, Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, the smoke detector requirement for private apartments was introduced on January 1st, 2016.
The BREMEN police have published a press release stating that there have been incidents. The STADE police station (Lower Saxony) warns against the WhatsApp reports and the AALEN police headquarters (Baden-Württemberg, introduced January 1, 2015) believes that, at least as of now, it is a false report .
You can already see clearly here: Yes, there may have been individual cases, like in Bremen. However, in many other places across Germany, this warning turned out to be inappropriate.
In October 2016…
There was a slightly smaller wave, in which EXACTLY the chain letter from January 2016 was sent unchanged. The wording was 1:1. From this it was quite clear that no one had written a new warning for a specific reason, but rather that the old chain letter had flared up again.
In January 2017…
Exactly ONE year after the chain letter first appeared, there was another nationwide wave of warnings about false inspectors. This wave emerged again on the networks, was sent via WhatsApp and Facebook and ultimately ended up with the authorities due to its social media relevance.

Since this type of fraud can of course take place, a warning is not illegitimate, but you should be careful to differentiate whether you have not fallen victim to social media hysteria.
From the wording of the postings from 2017 shown above, you can clearly see that they have their origins in the warning from 2016. So no new warnings written for specific reasons, but content adapted phrase by phrase.
In October 2018…
...we are now in the middle of a wave of these warnings again. A visually new, but textually completely identical warning is distributed on Facebook and WhatsApp:

You can clearly see that this is exactly the chain letter from January 2016.
Interim summary
We have already had several telephone calls with police and fire department press offices today. The problem at this point: due to the conversational value of social media, these warnings find their way into reality. They develop from a chain letter to “hearsay” and suddenly the inspectors are standing in the neighbor’s door.
Another potential source of danger is the press, which unthinkingly adopts and distributes social media content. This further incites the hysteria. In the end, and this is the big problem, these cases end up with the police, who then publish warnings themselves and thus become a wheel in the chain letter game. This is currently the case again, and there is no point in blaming the police (or fire brigade) as the smoke detector trick has definitely been used in the past.
How do I know that the chain letter is the cause?
The big question at this point is whether there really are a number of nationwide incidents at a certain point in time, or whether the chain letter is the reason for the hysteria.
Clues:
- In recent years, the chain letter has been circulated quite regularly in January and October
- If the warning contains the phrases “We just received a report internally from the fire department” or “whether the smoke detectors, which have been legally required since January, are in place,” it is a copy of the chain letter from 2016.
- If there are warnings for the local area at the same time on Facebook in different cities and by different media/authorities, one can assume that chain letters sent out are the reason.
Our problem
It's tedious! Especially when authorities and the media pick up on the chain letter hype and present it as an acute warning, we usually have our backs to the wall. This is the fourth time we've taken part in this wave, and it's always been the same.
It appears that there have been isolated incidents confined to specific locations.
Thanks to Facebook, WhatsApp and CO, concerned users have now distributed this information on all channels. And so it happens that these alleged inspectors are suddenly traveling nationwide, which is NOT true at the moment.
We can use the number of inquiries about the chain letter as an indicator, because if we receive more inquiries about the chain letter again, then we know that it will be sent more frequently again.
Therefore again:
No, we do not deny this method! This variant of the grandchild trick will exist and one can definitely warn against it. But hey, doesn't anyone notice that the supposed sightings...
a) randomly appear all over the country at the same time,
b) are always accompanied by a chain letter, which has been sent unchanged since January 2016,
c) often only took place “in neighboring towns”?
Conclusion: No matter what message is floating around where!
Unannounced smoke detector inspectors should not be allowed into the house. If you have a case like this, please report it directly to the police!
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