We’re always happy to give a wide berth to people pulling April Fools pranks, but even so it’s pushing it to do it on March 27. If you go that early, you need to be side-splittingly funny or earn our disdain until we’ve forgotten all about it.

The Funded‘s Adeo Ressi is now confirming that the shutdown notice he posted last week is part of an April Fools joke. He was unavailable for comment, he says, because he was “in remote Utah at a wedding.” Weddings are always an excuse for being offline, I guess, so we’re forgiving The Funded for going dark on the situation. And a wedding in Utah must be fascinating. But as to the hilarity of the joke itself, well that’s up to The Funded’s users to decide.

We enjoyed last year’s April Fools joke that involved the launching of a new site that let venture capitalists review founders that pitched them (from First Round Capital).

From: Michael Arrington
Date: March 30, 2009 10:21:26 AM PDT
To: Adeo Ressi
Cc: erick schonfeld
Subject: Re: FYI

something funny would be nice.

On Mar 30, 2009, at 9:28 AM, Adeo Ressi wrote:

Erick and Michael,

The message was a weekend prank for April Fools’s Day that was leaked to the media by Member saying that the site was shutting down “following a lawsuit.” There are no more threats than usual, and there was no mention of a lawsuit… The site is not shutting down.

In fact, the prank notice said that we would end reviews because we concluded all investors are great. We chose the weekend because of the low traffic levels, and we thought people would laugh at the claim that all investors are great. Instead, people just assumed the worst.

Ironically, I have been in remote Utah at a wedding, so I have not been able to send emails or update the site… An update is forthcoming, and I’ll need a better prank next year… Any ideas?