How the Gacillia Nut saved me a sh*tstorm of grief…

Hey, it’s been a slow summer, so when an email comes in promising a high-dollar job for what looks like simple HTML formatting of existing content, I give it consideration despite the prospective client’s atrocious command of the language.  Not *much* consideration, though. Sounds suspiciously like a certain Nigerian dialect common to form letters distributed to credit card thieves.

Thanks for your  swift response and l have small scale business which i want to turn into large scale business now it located in city and the company  is based on importing and exporting of Agriculture products such as Kola Nut, Gacillia Nut and Cocoa so i need a best of the best layout design for it. Can you handle that for me ?. so i need you to check out this site but i need something more perfect than this if its possible . [website url redacted] the site would only be informational, so i need you to give me an estimate based on the site i gave you to check out, the estimate should include hosting and i want the same page as the site i gave you to check out and i have a private project consultant, he has the text content and the logos for the site.
Note:
1. I want the same number of pages with the example site i gave you to check excluding videos and blogs.
2. I want only English language
3. I don’t have a domain yet but i want the domain name as [website url redacted]
4. you will be updating the site for me.
5. i will be proving the images, logos and content for the site.
6. i want the site up and running before ending of next month.
7. My budget is $2000 to $4000
Kindly get back to me with:
(1) an estimate
(2) your cell phone number
(3) And will like to know if you are the owner ??
Thank you

Oh, man. You can wave that kind of money in a man’s face and it can make him quite incautious, but seriously, this stinks of a phishing expedition – and also, WTF is a “Gacillia Nut”??

Well, what the Gacilla Nut turns out to be is a handy unique search term which you can use to discover exactly what this email is all about. I tried Gacillia Nut on Google, and yup. Turns up nothing but scam alerts saying that if you engage these guys, they try to get you to run a charge on a stolen credit card and send them a cut back. You end up eating the chargeback, fees plus the amount you send them back, which is of course the whole point of the scam. Beware, fellow web architects, the egg-sucking dogs are after us now. :P

Updated: August 23, 2015 — 12:43 pm

11 Comments

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  1. Dodged a bullet there, Reverend.

    It’s odd that the scammers target web workers who are, generally speaking, a skeptical bunch and much more savvy than the typical victim of web scamming.

  2. I hope they choke on their Gacillia nuts! :)

  3. These scammers are relentless. Guess if you have nothing else to do, right? Anyway, these bums target my industry (B&B’s) too and send emails that are basically the same scam (book several nights, want to pay with credit card, send them back some of the extra charges, etc).

    Obviously some people fall for it, or they wouldn’t still be doing it.

    1. The “success rate” of the scammers is also hard to gauge, since they are operating illegally and do not keep track of specific numbers. One individual estimated he sent 500 emails per day and received about seven replies, citing that when he received a reply, he was 70 percent certain he would get the money.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/419_scams

      Jebus Crispy, scammers get a 1.4% reply rate? That’s actually surprisingly good. /:

  4. It’s amazing how frequently phishing scams and the like include gratuitous spelling and grammar errors. Maybe that weeds out the smart people: if the errors don’t make you suspicious, perhaps you’re just the kind of sucker they want.

    1. Let’s just thank our lucky stars that these are non-english-speaking crooks using Nigerian form letter scams. I’d hate to think the damage that an expatriate group of out-of-work English Majors could do. There’s a good start to a novel right there.. :D

  5. Thanks, just saved us a ” sh*tstorm of grief…” too :)

  6. Wow. Though that is hilarious that the search term returns the warnings you need.

  7. Thank you and all the other websites that showed up when I googled “gacillia nut”. Though Kola Nut should have been a tip-off because I’ve actually lived in Nigeria, and it’s probably the world HQ for consumption of the stimulating kola nut.

    So yes, I had the exact same inquiry today, and the same response from them except that I wasn’t asked about my cell number and ownership status.

    Whew! Back to real work.

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