Hotmail Account Hoax

Summary:
Email claims that your Hotmail (or Yahoo) account will be terminated if you don't forward the message (Full commentary below.)

Status:
False

Examples:(Submitted via email 2003, 2004, 2005)

READ THE PARAGRAPH IF YOU WANT TO KEEP YOUR HOTMAIL ACCOUNT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Hotmail User,

Because of the sudden rush of people signing up to Hotmail, it has come to our attention that we are vastly running out of resources. So, within a month's time, anyone who does not receive this email with the exact subject heading, will be deleted off our server. Please forward this email so that we know you are still using this account.

WARNING WARNING

We want to find out which users are actually using their Hotmail accounts. So if you are using your account, please pass this e-mail to every Hotmail user that you can and if you do not pass this letter to anyone we will delete your account.

Subject: Fwd: Warning - Hotmail users

WARNING WARNING Hotmail is overloading and we need to get rid of some people and we want to find out which users are actually using their Hotmail accounts. So if you are using your account, please pass thise-mail to every Hotmail user that you can and if you do not pass this letter to anyone we will delete your account.

From Mr. Jon Henerd

Hotmail Admin. Dept.

Hello to everyone from the Hotmail Headquarters! This is just a little test to see who is actively using their email account and in effect deleting all inactive users accounts. This process will make the whole site faster and easier to use for the active users. Now on to what to do with this email. All you have to do is forward this on to at least 10 registered Hotmail users. If you don't forward this on within 48 hours of reading it, your account will be deactivated momentarily until you contact Hotmail Headquarters.

MSN as you might know is having some technical difficulties due to the amount of accounts registered. Forward this message by copy and pasting it to all the people on your contact list so that our server recognizes your account as active. All accounts who do not will be removed within 24 hours so that the network is not overloaded with inactive accounts

Commentary:
Variations of this email have been circulating since 1999 but it is still a common visitor to in-boxes across the world. The hoaxes also travel via MSN Messenger. The information in these messages is completely untrue. Like a lot of hoaxes, this one banks on the fact that many people will hit the "forward" button without analyzing the information very deeply. Even if Hotmail was "running out of resources", it would be highly improbable for them to attempt to remedy the problem by asking customers to forward an email. Why would Hotmail employ such a vague, hit and miss method of checking on the status of account holders? If Hotmail really wanted to find out if users still had an active account they would be more likely to send an email that asked for a reply within a given time frame rather than request that the message be forwarded. Besides, I'm sure that Hotmail has sophisticated and precise methods of checking the activity levels of a given account that do not require the account holder to reply to or forward a specific message.

Although the above example is aimed at Hotmail, variations of the hoax have also targeted Yahoo and AIM instant messaging customers.

Regardless of the version, the best place for these messages is the "Deleted Items" folder.

A version that targets Yahoo:

DO NOT DELETE!!!! This is Yahoo President Jay Russell, I am sorry to announce that Yahoo has reached its maximum number of accounts two million. If you would like to keep your account for free send this to everyone on your list. This way we can know which accounts are being used and which accounts we can delete. Send this within 8 days and your account will remain free. Once again I am sincerely sorry that I have to do this. Please start sending. Jay Russell, Yahoo Management

Write-up by Brett M.Christensen