Last night I realized that my 11-year-old son’s big Christmas gift was missing. I’d ordered it on Amazon about three weeks ago but it was one of those 3rd party fulfillment deals so the delivery wasn’t via Prime and was expected to take several weeks. No problem, I thought. I’ve ordered hundreds of things on Amazon and never once had a problem.

But with Christmas coming up, I checked last night and, to my surprise, the tracking information showed the item had arrived here at my house last Thursday. I immediately thought it must have been stolen off my porch by porch pirates. But then I noticed that this particular package showed I had signed for it. And then I remembered signing for one package last week. And yet, I didn’t remember getting the gift for my son. It’s not here. For a few hours, this was driving me nuts. How had I received this package in my hand and not received it?

This morning I got up early and went through everything again. It still made no sense until I clicked on the reviews for the 3rd party company I’d ordered from. It showed 83% negative feedback in the past 30 days, about the time I placed my order. As I scrolled through the messages I saw a pattern. People had ordered items from this company and, weeks later, had received a box they were asked to sign for containing a plastic wristband with a USB drive. Nothing else.

And sure enough, I suddenly remembered what was in the box I’d signed for: a white plastic wristband with a USB drive. I never connected it to the expensive gift I’d ordered weeks before. I’d been scammed.

I’ll get my money back. Amazon will refund it or my credit card will do it. I ordered a replacement item for my son. So it’s not going to cost me anything ultimately. I’ll probably never know who the scammers were or if they’ll get caught or simply move on to try this scam again next Christmas. And yet, I’m left with this feeling of being taken advantage of that I don’t like. Don’t the scammers deserve to be punished for doing this to so many people at Christmas?

Maybe that’s why this sweet little bit of revenge strikes me as so perfect right now. As you’ll see, some porch pirates stole an item from this guy’s house. He had security footage showing the thief in action, but when he took it to police they said it wasn’t worth their time to track him down.

So the engineer decided he would build his own revenge.

It took six months but what he came up with is truly epic. No porch pirates get hurt in this clip but the fart-spray-glitter-bomb leaves several people surprised and humiliated and best of all, we get to see it happen. Instant karma! Here’s hoping these creeps take the opportunity to start making some better choices in life.

Finally, if you want more detail about how the glitter bomb was designed and made, there’s a video about that here.