I have heard that perfume sample story, I also watch a lot of TruTV and it some times shocks me that some people are so bold to do some of the sick stuff they do!!
Elise I think you should go for the pepper spray rather than the taser, you can only take out one person at a time with a taser but with pepper spray you can take out several and you wont have to be close enough to touch them!!! You can get pepper spray pretty cheap on ebay