I rely on Snopes (www.snopes.com) to debunk urban legends, hoaxes and fraudulent claims, like " The Texas legislature once passed a resolution honoring the Boston Strangler", which by the way - according to Snopes is true.

As a Website Services Provider, I have seen my share of hoaxes, scams and urban legends. Many of these are pretty obvious if you give it some thought - like my personal favorite:
 
"Dear Sir, I am some bigwig (or related to some bigwig) in a third world country and I need your help to thwart some really bad guys who are taking over.  If you would just give me your bank account information, then I will deposit (some ridiculous amount of money) into it for safe keeping..."
... there seem to be hundreds of variations on this one, so I can only imagine that once in a great while somebody actually falls for it.  But I digress.

Today's topic is in response to spam I received from a friend - one of those, 'oh, this is so good that I'm sending it to everybody I know'  emails. The Subject is "5 Things You Never Knew Your Cell Phone Could Do" and it sounds a bit like a hoax, except that the email did not urge me to pass this on to everybody I know. Being intriqued, I decided to try some of these out for myself. Below are the 5 claims of what your cell phone can do, a quick summary of the response by Snopes, and my personal results:

1)  Calling 112 on your cell phone will get you emergency network access when your own service doesn't provide coverage. 
        According to Snopes , this is true - IN SOME PARTS OF THE WORLD, primarily in Europe. 
        What I found: Actually I haven't been able to try it out yet, but I intend to next time I'm out of my regular phone coverage area.  I'm inclined to believe Snope's insinuation that this probably won't work with most mobile services in the US.

2) Cars with Remote Keyless Entry can be unlocked over a cell phone. In other words, when you lock yourself out of the car, IF you can call someone at home on your cell phone & have them hold the spare remote to the phone while pressing the "unlock" button it will unlock the car for you.
        According to Snopes , this is FALSE - doesn't work. Absolutely untrue.
        What I found:  I really wanted this one to be true. That would be so cool!  So I had my daughter try it from the house while I was in the garage with my cell phone. She called my cell phone and tried to unlock the car using the phone as a transmitter. And, to my delight... IT WORKED! So I immediately went back to read the entire article Snopes had posted on the subject. 
    Down near the bottom of the article, there is a paragraph that begins "More than a few people have fooled themselves into believing the cell phone method of unlocking car doors actually works because they tried it and achieved the desired results - not realizing their cars were still within range of their keyless remote devices..."  
    Yup! Mea Culpa...
    To clear all doubt, I tried it again, calling my daughter at home while I was safely with the car at the grocery store... Guess what... It didn't work!  (I was so bummed...)

3) When  your cell phone battery is running low, dialing *#3370# will unlock additional battery power.
         According to Snopes , this is not exactly true, but there is some truth behind the rumor. Some cell phones have a 'half rate codec' which reduces the sound quality of your transmit and receive signal and so uses less battery, thereby extending the existing battery life.  
        What I found: It doesn't work for my cell phone (Samsung.) I encourage you to give it a try. Might be a handy thing to know IF it works for your brand of mobile phone. Oh, by the way... according to Snopes, the real sequence to get the half rate codec is *#4720#. The sequence *#3370# actually enables the FULL RATE codec - thereby improving audio quality and shortening battery life... 

4) Entering #06# will show your phone's unique ID. If you phone is stolen, you can call your service provider and have them shut down the phone, so it won't work for whoever stole it.
        According to Snopes , this is true FOR SOME PHONE BRANDS, but not all.
        What I found: I pressed #06# and got a 17 digit alpanumeric string. If I ever have my phone stolen, Watch out, thief! I'm cutting you off!

5) You can avoid paying for directory information (411) by using a FREE 411 service.
        According to Snopes , this is true, with the caveat that the 'free' service is actually being paid for by some business (McDonalds, Google, etc) and that you may have to listen to their advertisement before you get the 'free' service. Think network television - you don't pay to watch ,but you have to live with commercials.
           What I found: I tried Google's  Free directory service (1-800-GOOG-411) and it seemed to work. Basically it is a voice based business directory service. I said what state, city , and business I needed and it gave me the top listings. But, being confined to business listings, that wouldn't help me remember my great Aunt Lulu's phone number... unless she runs a business.  
    Another service (1-100-FREE-411)  makes you listen to a brief commercial before providing directory assistance. This one allows for residential listings, IF you provide the city , state and last name of the party your looking for. Not bad to know if you REALLY need to find Aunt Lulu's number...