Recently, there has been a rash of people on my messanger list sending me the same message. It says, and I quote:

" DO NOT DELETE!!! This is yahoo President Jay Russell. I am sorry to announce that yahoo has reached its maximum number of accounts- 2 million. If u would like to keep your account for free, send this to everyone on your list. This way we can know which accounts r being used and which accounts can be deleted. Send this within 8 days and your account will remain free. Once again, i am sincerly sorry that I have to do this. Please start sending. Jay Russell, Yahoo management "

Is this a scam? I went to the Yahoo! F.A.Q., and it says:

"How many users does Yahoo! have? (Back to Top)

More than 345 million unique users worldwide used the Yahoo! global network of properties (January 2005)."

Should I take this to mean that someone is running a scam? I wouldn't think that you would have to send that particular note to prove that you're using your account... I figured all Yahoo! would have to do is look at one's signin log...

Plus there are a few notes that I might point out that make me believe that it is a fraud. The use of "u" instead of "you", "r" instead of "are" and the lower case "I". Somehow, I feel that if this note was truly as important as it says... the grammer and spelling would have been better looked over...

What's the deal?

A concerned customer,
~Victoria