Every year someone goes careening over the metaphoric cliff that April Fool's Day can be for a prankster without proper judgment.

Even so, Internet stock-trading house Zecco wants the world to know that it couldn't possibly have been stupid enough to concoct an April Fool's Day prank that had customers seeing fantastical seven-figure account balances, and, believing themselves to be just playing along, trading as though the new-found fortunes were real.

They were not real, of course --there were technical problems --although losses and fees accrued through those accounts turned out to be more problematic.

After a story on the Consumerist Web site flagged the train weck as an ill-advised April Fool's joke, Zecco was forced to set the record straight: "We did not perpetrate an April Fool's Joke on our customers ... In no way (were we) trying to be funny regarding such a sensitive matter as your buying power or account balance, nor would it even consider doing this."

So let that be a lesson: Don't screw up on April Fool's Day.