Visitors to the GottaDeal.com Forum this morning got a scare when the forums were taken down due to routine maintenance.

During a scheduled forum upgrade overnight, the staff placed a frightening yet humorous message on their outage page:

Due to legal action, the forum is now closed
No, just kidding. Seriously, we’re just doing an upgrade of the forum software. It could take a few hours, so find something better to do with your time until then. Maybe grab a book. Nobody reads anymore. Why is that? Oh well. See you in a few hours.

When I checked again several minutes later, a more prominent message was displayed above, informing visitors that the site was undergoing maintenance.

Good one, GottaDeal. You got me for a solid five seconds . . . but can you blame me for being fooled? With companies like Wal-Mart getting more and more aggressive against Black Friday websites each year, it’s just a matter of time until this isn’t a joke. Scary, isn’t it?