Oh you silly scammers.
Yesterday I received a text message from someone inquiring about my web design services. YAY! Right? Well.
No.
First I thought it odd that he contacted me via text. It’s not unheard of, but odd for an initial contact as there’s no way of knowing if that number can even receive texts. Second, he then asked for my email address. Hmm. If you found my number, the email should be easy to find too. I did a reverse number search and found the number was based in West Virginia. Another alarm bell – why would he hire someone clear across the country? I wouldn’t turn someone on the east coast down necessarily, but my main focus is local businesses. I looked closer at the email address, it looked like a person’s name, but it was not the same name as the person inquiring. Also it was a gmail addy, not a company one. Again, he’s looking to expand his business (supposedly) so while a red flag, it’s not yet a deal breaker. But the red flags ARE starting to pile up.
Next he sends me an email with a scope of work as follows:
It’s an odd email – Most companies don’t provide an upfront budget, and to say he wanted something just like another site is unusual. But he explained the images and text would not be copies. To be in such a rush with a firm deadline is unusual for a small company looking to expand. He’s asking for info he already has, but I can understand if he has a standard response he’s sending to several web designers. Again, individually not deal breakers, but the alarm bells continue to pile up.
So I sent Mr. Gacillia a quote.
And he responded with:
Thanks for your response, i am okay with the estimate and i wanna proceed so i will be depositing $2,300 using credit card so work can commence ASAP, i understand the content for this site would be needed so as for the job to commence so regarding the content i will need a Lil favor from you and the reason i need this favor from you is because the consultant does not have the facility to charge credit cards and i also am presently in the hospital for surgery so i will be glad if you can help me out with this favor,The favor i need from you is. i would give you my card info’s to charge for $6,400 so $2,300 would be a deposit payment for my website design and the remaining $4,000 you would help me send it to the project consultant that has the text content and the logo for my website so once he has the $4,000 he would send the text content and logo needed for my website to you also the funds would be sent to him via cash deposit into his account, sending of funds would be after funds clear into your own account and also $100 tip for your stress.
“i will need a Lil favor from you and the reason i need this favor from you is because the consultant does not have the facility to charge credit cards and i also am presently in the hospital for surgery”
NOW we have a deal breaker Mr. Gacillia. The alarm bells were deafening at this point. I did a bit of searching and “Gacillia Nut” turns up nothing but post after post of scams such as this one. One amusing exception was the spelling of Gracilia which the Urban Dictionary defines as a 1700s slang term for a person who sucks the life out of cows. This definitely rules Mr. Gacillia out.
After checking out a few blogs, it seems this scam has few variations despite going on for at least 2 years. A few people even mentioned minor changes to target other industries. So beware of Gacillias!!! #SAVETHECOWS !!
Please share – the only way to stop scammers is to shed a bright bright light on their cold, dark souls.
OMG #SAVETHECOWS – makes you wonder if they chose that specifically for you! hahaha crazy people out there!
Right? Sadly it seems to be a common scam. I got a second inquiry about a week ago.
Just got the same scam… glad you saved me from a lot of trouble,
I’m glad I could help!
Received the scam email this morning. Sounded fishy so i researched it and landed here. Thanks for taking the time to write about this scam.
I’m glad you researched it 🙂
I have fallen victim to these evil ne’er do wells earlier today. Luckily I ran across your post. The details of my first encounter closely mirror the details of your encounter with one disturbing difference. I may well lose sleep trying to come to grips with the difference.
In the “Scope” correspondence you mention he had a budget of ($4000 to $8000)
In my email from “Linda Morgan [email protected]” she indicates a budget of $3000 – $6000. What the hell is that about!
I’m hurt. This must be a gender thing.
Thanks for you effort.
I recently received an email from the same email address – I’m a ballet studio owner and the person was asking me to give her daughter private classes for three months. She wanted to wire me $2050, keep $500 as a deposit payment (I told her I would charge $900), give $1500 to the driver who would be transporting her daughter to and from class, and keep $50 as a “tip” for my trouble.
What I really want to know is, if I had agreed to this deal, would a real girl have shown up for ballet class?
Hi, this scam has made it to Northern Ireland. We’re a printing company, that also offers website design. The initial message came through the contact form on our website.
Email below –
On 15 Feb 2019, at 11:46, Sarah Thomson wrote:
Here is the job details
I have small scale business which i want to turn into large scale business now .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 .https://agroamerica.com/en/.… 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:
I want the same number of pages with the example site i gave you to check excluding videos and blogs. I want only English language, I don’t have a domain yet but i want the domain name as topfarmproduce.com, you will be updating the site for me. i will be proving the images, logos and content for the site. i want the site up and running before the second week in March.
My budget is £3000 to £6000
Kindly get back to me with:
(1) an estimate, (2) And will like to know if you are the owner?
Regards
Thanks for writing this warning up – got the same Gacillia Nut scam email this week and thought it sounded sketchy!
I had almost the exact inquiry, wow I am done wasting my energy on this.
Wow, just got this email. I had suspicions about it initially but was like ok this could be legit. Then they sent me their specs and about what they want and mentioned Gacillia Nut. I’m so glad my curiosity allowed me to google it. Finding out that it’s a scam before I waste more time is really appreciated.
Thanks for the post!! I went through every one of those questions hahaha
I just got off the phone with this guy who called himself “Mark”.
Same script and everything as mentioned above. It started with the text,
I told him that one of my friends has a ranch grows nuts and exports them.
I thought if this person is real, this might be a great partnership. I spoke with him
on the phone, his English was not bad. I initial thought the accent would be INDIAN,
but it wasn’t… it sounded more of an African accent.. Maybe Nigeria. It might be the offspring of the Nigerian prince. lol
“Larry” found me via LinkedIn. Then he went to my website to complete my consultation questionnaire. Is no place safe!!
My budget was $4000 to $18000! Do I win 🙂 Everything else was word-for-word as mentioned above. Email was from Nareendra Ranjit – moonmj1477 at gmail. Truly a let down.
Oooh $18,000!!!
Thank you for taking time to publish your experience with this. You are saving a lot of us the headaches of learning this the hard way!!!
Thanks Kathy – that’s exactly why I posted it!
got the same mail, but don’t know how they are making money by doing this scam?..can you explain?…
I just got the same email word for word from [email protected]
Why don’t they update the details of the CTA? I’ve had at least 6 different people requesting a website that focuses on “Agriculture products such as Kola Nut, Gacillia Nut and Cocoa”. I’ve strung some of them along just to waste their time. But it gets old quickly.
I don’t know! It’s so easily checked as a fraud, but I guess enough are still falling for it to make it viable.
I just got it too! THANK YOU for this website!
THANK YOU for posting this!
I just got the email from freddie wilson
So glad you posted this! I received basically the same set of emails from Nicolas Romano, [email protected]. I went back and forth a few times until the red flags were too much to ignore. Your post saved me any extra effort — thank you!
Thanks for this post. Copying the email here in case anyone else searches for it:
James William Tom [email protected]
Thanks for the reply Here is the job details
I have small scale business which i want to turn into large scale business now it located in pA 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 ?
THANK YOU FOR POSTING!!! I Got this email from “Peter Russell.” He called me last night and sounded sketchy so I looked around and found your post.
Just got this scam and googled Gacillia nut too because I thought it was weird that they contacted me via text… Thank you for taking the time to write this so I didn’t waste any time communicating with him. ugh scammers.
Thank you! So glad to come across this post! I just received this email yesterday and it sounded a bit sketchy so was reluctant to reply or consider… basically just ignored. It first came through my client management system which funnels quality leads. Immediately something didn’t seem right when they didn’t want to follow my workflow. So just left it and didn’t respond. Later, they forwarded my autoresponder email back to me asking for more information (some of which they already had). Since I was hesitant to reply back, I did a search online for “Kola Nut, Gacillia Nut and Cocoa” and this post came up!!! Thank you so much for writing this… very grateful to have found it! All that can be said to those like myself who have had this same situation happen to them is “Thank goodness there is an abundance of good people in the world and only a small number of bad ones”. Take care everyone… stay safe online and off 🙂
Beware of [email protected]
Thanks for your swift response,
I’ll like you to understand that I had small scale business which i want to turn into large scale business now it located in NY 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 ?.
Thanks
Patrick
Thank you for shining a light on this scam! I received a very similar email today. I found your post by researching Gacillia.
This is crazy! I just got this today:
Text: “Hello I’m Steve Cole, i want to know if you can handle website design for a new company?? kindly get back to me ASAP so i can send you the job details”
I didn’t love the “??” or “ASAP” because this could indicate a hard to work with client, but figured wth and gave them my email so they could provide more details. Here is the email I received:
“Good to hear from you. I have small scale business which i want to turn into large scale business now it located in NY 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.So i need you to check out this site but i need something more perfect than this if its possible .http://www.agroamerica.com…. 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.”
Minor alarm bells going off because of the wording, but I have worked with people whose first language wasn’t English before, don’t want to assume anything, so decided to do some googling and found myself here. Crazy! Guess I just won’t be responding 🙂
Yet another thank you! I recently started using Bark.com and this was the message:
Hello! You were referred to me by BBB.org concerning my website development, I will like you to handle E-Commerce website design for my new company I have small scale business which i want to turn into large scale business now it located in Ohio and the company is based on importing and exporting of Agriculture products.. Kindly let me know if this is what you can handle so i can get back to you with details on my project. Regards Williams
Then I received a text, after giving him a call with no answer. The same story as the rest, looked up “Kola Nut, Gacillia Nut and Cocoa” and came across your blog.
I just lost my gacillia nut virginity and I thank you for being the site to confirm my suspicions. Why not use better grammar in a scam like this?
Ha! And right? And why pick a nut that doesn’t exist?
Ha he just emailed me for work. I’m going to send him this link lmao what a moron.
Thank you very much for writing about this. I too have received this exact email from a “Kenneth Wood” at a gmail address, wanting me to produce a website at ‘bestfarmproduce.com’ for a budget of between $4000 and $6000. Too good to be true! Your blog post saved me a huge waste of time!
He contacted my today…..
Thanks for the reply Here is the job details
I have small scale business which i want to turn into large scale business now it located in NC and the company is based on importing and exporting of Agriculture products such as Kola Nut, pea Nut and Cocoa so i need a best of the best layout design for it. Can you handle that for me ?
I need you to check out this site but i need something more perfect than this if its possible
http://silaglobal.com/…. 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 farmNaturesproduces.com
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 the end of next month.
I just received this same scam in 2020. What I want to know is if they are supposedly going to give you their credit card to charge funds to…. how do they get money out of you? What happens if someone goes along with this scam? Will they ask me for my credit card instead?
You can now add “stolen valor” to this scam. Got the same Kola Nut, Gacillia Nut bullshit from a LTC Bill L. ([email protected]) just this morning. Hitting up Veteran Owned businesses now.
Ugg. That’s even worse.
thanks for writing this. I got the same mail.
It’s the same kind of scam as getting a overpaid check on Craigslist. They take your money that you’ve forwarded from the “extra”, then the payment fails to finalize or they dispute it to cancel. You’re left paying the “extra” out of your pocket.
Thanks for the post. Saved me sending them another response.
Gah! I exchanged several emails with some clown proposing almost the exact same thing in an email matching your example almost word for word.
Thank you so much for posting your editorial.
Thanks to your blog post that came up early in a Google search, you have saved me from going down the path of building an estimate for this. I won’t get that time back I’ve already spent exchanging emails, but you have certainly saved me a DAY of work researching , building, and editing a quote for this ass hat.
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!
Thank you. Just got it today. It just happens we just developed a website for an agricultural company 🙂
THANK YOU FOR THIS POST. WE ALSO RECEIVED INQUIRIES FROM THIS PERSON WITH THIS EMAIL ADDRESS. AFTER A FEW EXCHANGES, WE WILL CUT THIS CONVERSATION OFF.
OMG thank you for this post… same scammer reached out to me on my google my business message profile…something was “off”…sure enough. lol
Same scam. Was using the name Nicolas Romano ([email protected])
Also received messages from Nicolas Romano ([email protected])
Thanks for the post. I received a similar email from the exact same email address. Thought it seemed a little fishy 🙂