Here’s What You Need To Know About The Honey Scam

Recent video posted by the Youtuber MegaLag called “ Exposing the Honey Influencer Scam” has gained significant attention after it exposed the truth behind the company, Honey. He conducted a research that lasted multiple years, aiming to expose the extension scam Honey is responsible for.

Honey is an internet search browser extension that is supposed to help find the best coupons for lowering the price of something you aim to buy. It pops up after it searches the internet and gives you the code you can enter at the shopping site you are currently on. 

Honey started gaining popularity in 2020 after PayPal bought it for 4 billion dollars and prepared a mass advertisement campaign. Honey was a sponsor for many big influencers, especially Youtubers. They partnered with several of the biggest Youtubers, promising them commissions. Youtubers were supposedly getting a part of the sale of a product if they had brought the customer to the site via a link they provided on their account - a process called “affiliate marketing” - and they used Honey. 

However, MegaLag exposed that instead of directing the commission to the influencer, Honey took it for themselves. In order for the influencer to get the commission, the internet extension, hidden from plain sight, needed to be directed to the influencer's account. What Honey did was change the extension to their name, making it so that the commission the company selling the product is directed to them instead. With this process, they got the money without the influencer ever noticing since they didn’t know someone had clicked their link.

Not only did they arguably steal the money influencer’s were supposed to earn, they also withheld coupons from their own customers. MegaLag’s research proved that in some instances that Honey popped up and said that they “did not find a coupon for this specific product”, coupons did exist that were available to access by other means. MegaLag claimed that Honey could be in collaboration with some companies and only showing coupons they wanted to put out in order to save the company money.

Additionally, MegaLag revealed that when you click the “Got it.” icon on the pop up of Honey that states that they couldn’t find a coupon, the extension that is supposed to have the influencer’s name on it so the commission of the sale can be directed, changes to Honey’s own extension. With this, Honey gets the commission, even though they didn’t help the user find a coupon at all. Multiple lawyer’s on the internet stated that this is an “extension scam” and they plan to prosecute Honey. Some have even called for the creation of a grand jury to make this trial nation-wide.

Multiple influencer’s, including the biggest ones like Pewdiepie, Mr. Beast and Pokimane have partnered up with Honey before and have promoted it throughout their videos. Examining the view rate of these content creators, MegaLag estimates that maybe “millions of dollars have been stolen by Honey from these creators.”.

After MegaLag’s viral video, influencers who were previous partners with Honey came out, claiming that they weren’t aware of what was going on. Marques Brownlee, a youtuber with 19.7 million subscribers, made an exclusive video explaining his partnership with Honey and claimed that even though his close ties with them, he had no idea that this trick with extensions were happening. Although MegaLag accused some creators who have terminated their contracts with Honey of being aware, concrete proof of this has not been provided.

Paypal did come out to defend Honey. They stated that anything done by Honey -including the acts MegaLag labeled as scam in his video- is stated in their terms and services. They denied any fraudulent behavior. Paypal claimed that Honey uses "last-click attribution," a common method used by affiliate marketing programs which is perfectly legal. However, they did not touch on some crucial points MegaLag brought up in his video.

Right now, the future of Honey seems conflicted. MegaLag said that his investigation is ongoing and to “expect more videos.” . A prosecution has not been confirmed, but many lawyers state that it is very likely.

We will keep you updated as more information comes out from the ongoing investigation.

Source: Youtube (Video by MegaLag: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc4yL3YTwWk)

Author: Defne DOGAN