Top 20 Hidden Camera Pranks Gone WRONG

As YouTuber Prettyboyfredo learned firsthand, revenge is a dish best served on camera. He pranked his girlfriend, Jasmine, one-too-many times, and she took it upon herself to get back at him – or, rather, his PS4. After a long day of watching him game, Jasmine calmly unplugged his console, walked outside, and chucked it right in their swimming pool. Of course, she’d bought a new one to replace it with. But she failed to consider that the new console wouldn’t carry over Fredo’s hard drive of games and saved files. All of that is gone. It’s hard to be too mad at her, though, considering she really didn’t know any better.

For all the Internet traffic this caused, the actual prank video was seemingly never even posted. Sure, Charles Ross’ channel is no stranger to all sorts of crazy, questionable hijinks. His stints have even gotten him arrested on more than one occasion. But this one proved too much for even Ross’ channel. As a so-called April Fool’s joke, he put on sergeant’s clothing and tried to give someone a parking ticket. The woman was having none of it, though, and soon enough, the actual authorities got involved. Surprise surprise, impersonating a cop is a felony with some very serious consequences. Despite that, Ross has moved past the incident and is still active on YouTube to this day.

They say life imitates art, but this one might take that idea a bit too far. See, in “Dragon Ball Z”, Goku defeats his nemesis Frieza through the uber-powerful Spirit Bomb Technique. YouTuber Chengman tried to recreate that in a college lecture, complete with costumes and a bouncy ball. The issue? His Goku didn’t have good aim like his anime counterpart. Instead of blasting Frieza away, Chengman’s “Spirit Bomb” ricocheted off the ceiling and nailed an innocent student's laptop. Based on the sound it made, it’ll probably take more than a few bucks to repair. Yeah, it’s safe to say this isn’t the live-action remake people had in mind.

Even drug lords need to eat. So, thanks to some convincing costumes and set design, these delivery drivers are led to believe they’re bringing food into an active lab. To really sweeten the deal, YouTubers NELK got someone in a cop outfit to do a fake raid on the compound at a few points. For what it’s worth, most of the drivers laughed it off, especially once NELK paid them for the inconvenience. But the final guy wasn’t so enthused. He lashed out, got violent with the fake cop, and had to be restrained before he hurt anyone else.

On a channel named “TopNotch Idiots,” it shouldn’t be too surprising that some videos aren’t completely thought out. For example, when they pretended to steal strangers' cars. They’d lure the owner out with some fib about their vehicle, and then hop in the driver’s seat and lock the door. But, instead of explaining the joke from inside the safe, locked car, the prankster decided to milk the concept by making a run for it. In the end, all it did was put him on the receiving end of a very real fight. Thankfully, the car owner realized it was a ruse before any real damage was done.

In the name of a sponsorship deal with a headphone company, BaskTV decided to take to the streets with a pair of scissors. They’d come up to unsuspecting bystanders and snip their wired earbuds, before rewarding them with a new and improved pair. But they didn’t always have time to explain before things got physical. The tricksters were shoved, called names, and threatened with a whole lot more. Quite frankly, it’s a miracle none of their victims followed through. As it turns out, new headphones are the silver bullet to de-escalate any arguments – at least, the kind involving snipped earbuds.

As a general rule of thumb, pranks that involve breaking into someone’s house aren’t that funny. That’s doubly true if that person is a trained veteran with understandable reason to react with violence – even if they’re your friend! Basically, there’s a million reasons not to pull this kind of stunt, and they’re all on display in this ill-conceived video. As you can imagine, the prank didn’t go over well, culminating in a keyboard being smashed into someone’s head – and not the veteran’s. Hopefully, that probable bruise teaches everyone involved that messing with trained professionals is not a good idea.

This hidden camera prank ended with someone in the hospital, and another behind bars. YouTuber Tanner Cook earned himself a decently-sized following doing all sorts of eye-rolling pranks on strangers. But, in 2023, he tried to trick the wrong person. In the middle of a silly ruse involving Google Translate, mall-goer Alan Colie reportedly repeatedly asked Cook to back off. When that didn’t work, Colie took out a weapon and opened fire. Cook’s wounds were not fatal, but the incident brought him and Colie into a highly-controversial court case. Needless to say, it’s likely this video will never see the light of day.

Relationships are built on trust, right? Well, this guy Shane’s willingness to try on a blindfold got him seriously pranked. At first, he and a girl named Brianna are doing their thing. They’re kissing, caressing, having a good time, you get the picture. Then, suddenly, it’s not the girl caressing him anymore, it’s channel star Fatalism. The ruse doesn’t last very long, but Shane still isn’t happy about it, and he makes that displeasure known with one hell of a smack. Fatalism immediately drops, and we don’t blame him. At a certain point, you have to wonder if the video was worth all the pain.

On paper, there’s nothing wrong with giving fouseyTUBE, aka Yousef, a taste of his own hijinks. However, this incident wound up scary for all the wrong reasons. When Yousef discovered a Samara from “The Ring” looking girl in his apartment, he didn’t just freak out. He completely fainted. We’re not talking about a light fall onto a couch, either. This was a drop-to-the-floor unconscious kind of fainting. Even once Yousef woke up and discovered it was all a joke, he couldn’t help but hyperventilate. It’s clear that, to him, this went way beyond the impact of a mere prank.

It’s videos like this that make you really wonder what goes on in some YouTube pranksters’ heads. After all, when you go around dirtying up people’s shoes by stepping on them, what do you expect to happen? The obvious answer is nothing good. Yet despite the risks, Dennis Cee spent time making a video where he and a friend do just that. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the runtime is full of the guys being hit or shoved while crying out things like “it was a joke.” Since they don’t even clean off the shoes in the end, something tells us that explanation didn’t get them very far.

Jason Cid and his friends called the cops as a dumb joke, and in the end, he was the one who ended up in handcuffs. In what can only be described as the bad idea to end all bad ideas, Cid and company contacted the police to report “suspicious activity.” When officers arrived at the scene, they were directed to check the trunk. And indeed, they discovered that there was a whole lot of Coke in their vehicle – Coca Cola, that is. Cid found it funny enough to post on his channel, but he probably wasn’t laughing when the police later arrested him for misusing 911.

Roman Atwood spent the start of 2013 walking around with a cooler of fake snow. He and his bud pretended to dump it on people, only for nothing to come out. It was a harmless gag that most bystanders were good sports about. However, the snow was a bit too convincing for some. When Atwood jokingly dumped it on one passerby, the shock sent the man to the ground with chest pains. The camera was promptly cut as Atwood rushed to call 911. Fortunately, an update in the video’s description confirmed that the victim was okay.

This might be the only time that Oreos have landed someone in serious legal trouble. In 2017, ReSet stealthily took a video where he gave an unhoused man Oreos. Except, unbeknownst to the man, all the cream had been swapped with toothpaste. Afterwards, ReSet even tried to crack an insensitive joke about the whole thing. Upon uploading the quote-unquote “prank,” ReSet endured a vicious wave of backlash. And the court of public opinion wasn’t even his biggest issue. Later, he stepped into an actual courtroom, where he was sentenced to fifteen months in jail, though the sentence likely got suspended. As part of the verdict, ReSet’s YouTube channel was shut down for a period.

This one starts out, as many pranks do, with an innocuous request. RiskyRob just went around asking to borrow a few stranger’s phones. Nothing too sinister, right? However, he then pretended to call an assassin and ordered a hit on his girlfriend. Far-fetched or not, many weren’t too pleased about potentially being accessories to murder. One guy in particular was ready to let his fists do the talking, and wrestled Rob all the way to the ground. He was winding up for a punch right before the truth of the prank came out. If Rob had been just a few seconds slower, he would’ve had a good shiner to go with his video.

Picture this: you’re out and about, minding your own business, and decide to grab some grub. Then, all of a sudden, this guy comes up and takes the food right off your plate. All the while he’s talking to you like nothing’s wrong. That’s what Yousef of fouseyTUBE did, and in his defense, it did lead to some hilarious reactions. Some couldn’t believe it, some got mad, and one girl even tried to make him wear her ice cream. However, one guy took it a step further, and actually punched Yousef right in the face. Yousef laughed it off, but it just goes to show why you never get between a man and his pizza.

Instead of whoopie cushions or jump scares, the Stokes Twins decided to pull a prank like none other: faking a bank robbery. It featured ski masks, bags of money, and the whole shebang. They even included an innocent Uber driver who was then questioned as a suspected accomplice. The brothers were eventually confronted by police and thoroughly chewed out for disturbing the peace. But, despite that, they went out and did the same prank again. This time, rather than just a warning, the twins got a year of probation and 160 hours of community service each, among other things. The original video has reportedly since been deleted.

In broad daylight on a busy street, these two YouTubers decided it would be a good idea to stage an ATM robbery. You can probably guess where this is going. The fake hold-up looked plenty real to the onlookers, many of whom leapt into action with force. The faux criminal got roughed up a bit, admitted it was a prank, and then the tricksters reset to do it all over again. But, eventually, their scam attracted the wrong person. Thinking it was a real robbery, one intervening bystander punched the prankster hard enough to mess his nose up. After something like that, the words “it’s just a prank” arguably feel hollow.

It takes a lot of confidence to march up to a stranger and ask if they want to kiss your ass. Sure, it was all a silly wordplay joke in the end, except not everyone waited long enough to see the donkey object he was actually referring to. In the case of the last guy in Simple Misfits’ video, he swung first, and asked questions later. It all happens pretty fast, but the bottom line is that this Youtuber was suddenly missing a piece of his lower lip. After a doctor’s visit and some stitches, here’s hoping this guy’s learned to get to the punchline a bit quicker.

It’s an incredibly simple question, one that probably wouldn’t even merit the word “prank” in most cases. As if to prove it, the reactions in this video range from disinterested to outright confused – all except for one person’s. When the YouTuber stops a guy's car to ask what he’s looking for, the man responds by unloading his weapon right then and there. It’s a good thing the YouTuber was as fast as he was, otherwise things could’ve ended badly. For his part, the shooter got over it remarkably fast, and even shouted out his own social media. We’ll take a shoutout over bloodshed any day.