Man opens 21st birthday card to find out the last three years of his life have been a lie

One lad has found out the hard way that birthdays aren’t always for sweet gifts as his parents revealed a massive secret they’d been keeping from him.

It’s all fun and games when you get pranked, but what if everyone you knew was in on it and they revealed it in the most public way?

That’s what 21-year-old Charlie had to find out after his mum recorded his reaction to a three-year long prank on his birthday.

Sarah Austin posted the TikTok video of her son’s big day, which soon went viral thanks to its hilarious revelation.

In the clip, you can see Charlie in the garden as he’s opening a giant birthday card from his parents, who asked him to ‘read it out’ in front of all of his guests.

Thinking nothing of it, he complied.

"Happy 21st birthday, Charlie," he read out loud.

The birthday boy then began to jump up and down as he continued: "Yay - you no longer have a black box."

Clearly, Charlie was fond of the idea of no longer having to drive like a grandma without her glasses.

However, the reveal was yet to come which would turn his smile to a frown real quick.

He continued reading and said: "I've had no black box for three years? Are you serious?"

Laughter could be heard breaking out around him, and Charlie realised that it was all an elaborate hoax to force him to drive safely by making him believe he had a black box installed in his car.

Closing the card, he asked: "Are you taking the p***?”

Charlie added: You're telling me it took six and a half hours to get to Cornwall?"

His dad then replied, rubbing salt in the wound: "It slowed you down though, didn't it?"

Charlie was clearly miffed by the prank and went on to ask others around him whether they knew about it too, to which they confirmed that they’d been in on it.

One person shared: "We knew for years.

"When you had to slow down the other day, I was crying laughing!"

The video had now been viewed 1.7 million times, with TikTok users lapping up the laughs.

One wrote: "Fantastic parenting! 3 years safe driving in the bag.”

Another agreed: "Three years of driving carefully and avoiding accidents. Three years of experience on the roads. Top parents right there."

A third said: “This is genius level parenting.”

In another video, the parents explained to Charlie that he was pranked with a black box because he previously 'crashed' his car and they're apparently still paying it off.

Someone else commented: "This is how to parent! Learning how to actually drive safely is invaluable."

According to FleetGo: “A black box is a tracking and recording device that gathers and transfers data. The specific information that is recorded will differ depending on the black box and the company, but it will continuously record the desired information until removed.

“That information is typically transmitted over a standard cellular network for more permanent data storage, but in the event of no cellular signal, the box will still record the information and hold on to it until it can transmit.”

Hailed as a way to ensure safe driving, it’s pretty smart for his parents to have tricked him into driving well for three years before being let loose.