Go Cheers Yourself

Who among us is not familiar with the word 'Cheers' as a common salute over alcoholic beverages and the name of that bar where everyone knows your name? But a little while ago, one of our friends from Africa alerted us to another context for this word which we feel has been proliferating: an e-mail (especially if work-related) ending in 'cheers' is usually a sign that either (a) the sender has refused to do something that was asked or (b) the sender is dumping work onto someone else. The 'cheers' is taken by the sender as a way of defusing the negative content of the message. We also suspect a higher rate of prevalence of this usage amongst non-native English speakers. Instances or contra-instances welcome.