In an exposé by YouTuber MegaLag, he reveals that the browser extension’s services don’t quite work as advertised
Every online shopper understands the value of a coupon code. After all, who wouldn’t want to spend less than they should have for a purchase?
Honey, a browser extension app owned by PayPal, seeks to help buyers find the best coupons available on the internet for any given item. It promises to take on the burden of scouring the web and allow you, the user, a hassle-free checkout experience. No need to take minutes to look for coupons and no need to manually input long discount codes—all while guaranteeing the best deal possible.
However, in an exposé by YouTuber MegaLag, he reveals that the browser extension’s services allegedly don’t quite work as advertised. Instead, Honey not only intentionally doesn’t give you the best deal possible but it also is reportedly accused of “stealing” from influencers, YouTubers, blogs, and other affiliates they have partnered with.
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Without exact figures and a complete idea of the scope of the Honey scam, it is estimated that the browser extension app has allegedly stolen billions of dollars from the likes of large-scale personalities such as Mr. Beast and Linus Tech Tips to your ordinary micro-influencers. What makes it worse, this modern-day heist was spearheaded by a company under one of the world’s biggest financial technology companies.
How does Honey work?
Once installed in your browser of choice, Honey works like any other extension app. Inside the checkout page, it automatically searches for coupons online and applies the best deal from what the app has detected. From there, the user enjoys their discount at the convenience of just a single click.
On the off chance that there is no coupon available online, there will be a pop-up informing you so. But, keep in mind that Honey promises to scour the internet for the best deal possible, so rest assured that there really is no coupon out there—or so they say.
The inner workings of the Honey scam
So how does Honey make its money? How did they afford to sponsor various videos and advertisements from the world’s biggest internet personalities?
Influencers or YouTubers, whenever they advertise a certain product, often include an affiliate link to the item they are marketing in their post’s caption—whether it be a gadget on Amazon or a trendy pair of pants on Etsy. A viewer, should they choose to purchase said item through that link, grants the influencer a cut from the sale—their commission so to say for assisting the shop in selling the item.
How this works is through a term called last click attribution. For example, in the case that you encounter two different affiliate links for the same product—let’s say you clicked on Kai Cenat’s link but didn’t buy, then clicked on Mr. Beast’s then bought—the commission for the deal goes to Mr. Beast.
According to MegaLag, Honey, whether or not they find a coupon deal for you, gets the last click attribution for as long as you click on their pop-up—whether it is to apply the coupon or to simply acknowledge that they didn’t find anything to begin with. In essence, they show up at the very end of the purchasing process to take the commission that should rightfully go to the affiliate.
What makes it worse is that Honey apparently doesn’t even hold its promise of finding the best deal possible. Instead, whenever they partner with shops—from which they take a three percent commission for every purchase—they allow these sites to pre-select what coupons Honey will show a buyer. Meaning, if the store has a 20 percent coupon available, they can ask the app to show a five percent coupon instead.
What now?
Since the posting of MegaLag’s video, which has a total of 16 million views as of writing, Honey has lost roughly three million users (from 20 to 17 million). YouTuber Legal Eagle, a practicing lawyer named Devin Stone, also filed a class action lawsuit against Honey, urging them to pay the affiliates for damages and to stop their predatory use of last click attribution.
In a statement sent to The Verge, PayPal VP of corporate communications Josh Criscoe said, “We dispute the allegations in the lawsuits, and will defend against them vigorously. Honey is free to use and provides millions of shoppers with additional savings on their purchases whenever possible.”
He adds, “Honey helps merchants reduce cart abandonment and comparison shopping while increasing sales conversion. Honey follows industry rules and practices, including last-click attribution, which is widely used across major brands.”
Why does it all matter if you’re in the Philippines? The PayPal-owned app is also affiliated with local shops such as Shopee and Zalora and features specialized Honey-branded discount codes and coupons on the said platforms.
But if anything, a scam is a scam and Honey, if proven guilty, will have been responsible for a theft in the upwards of millions or even billions. A coupon code goes a long way and sure that five percent off feels like the perfect deal. But that minute of convenience should not come at the cost of a small creator trying to earn through an affiliate program and neither should that money go to a company we trust with our finances.