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Exposing the Honey Influencer Scam
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by now you've probably heard about honey
you know the browser extension that
saves you money do you have honey
installed what's honey oh no no no honey
honey is a free browser extension free
browser extension free browser extension
free browser extension that
automatically applies coupon codes when
you check out online free money
basically it's literally free money it
doesn't make sense to not be using this
so what's the cat there is no kid join
honey join honey join honey honey honey
honey honey honeyone honey honey honey
honey honey hone honey honey honey honey
Jo
Honey yeah I hate to break it to you but
your favorite influencers sold you a lie
honey is a scam and the majority of
claims promoted by those influencers
aren't even remotely true but it gets
worse honey hasn't just been scamming
you the consumer they've also been
stealing money from influencers
including the very ones they paid to
promote their product and I'm not just
talking about a few bucks here I believe
the scam has likely cost content
creators millions of dollars sound crazy
well I didn't believe it at first either
until I experienced it myself firsthand
in fact I'm confident this might just be
the biggest influencer scam of all time
which is insane considering honey is
owned and run by PayPal who purchased
this company for four billion this
three-part series is the result of a
multi-year investigation where I believe
I've uncovered signs of advertising
fraud affiliate fraud the illegal
collection of personal data deception
lies coercion extortion the list goes on
I've reviewed hundreds of documents
adverts sponsorships I've reviewed
emails between honey and Merchants
interviewed victims believe me this runs
deep now I want to be clear the views
allegations and conclusions expressed in
the series are my opinions based on
evidence I have gathered which will be
shared throughout with that said ladies
and gentlemen this is the Honey Trap
[Music]
now I know what you're thinking it's a
free browser extension how bad could it
be well trust me it's far more Sinister
than you might think you know what they
say if a product's free it's likely
you're the product and as you'll find
out later in this investigation that
remains true for payal honey now like
most people I too fell for the lies I
mean what's not to love about a free
browser extension that saves you money
it's a compelling product and with the
endorsement from what feels like every
single popular influencer on YouTube
it's no wonder millions of people
downloaded it ironically the very
influencers promoting honey seemingly
had no idea the company was quietly
picking money out of their very own
Pockets well at least one of them
realized but we'll get to that later so
let me show you how Honey's been
stealing money from influencers so let's
say you're watching a video on YouTube
if you're into Tech like me maybe you're
watching a lonus tich tips video lus
tells you about this free browser
extension that saves you money online
you install it in two clicks and boom
you have honey perfect timing because it
just so happens you're looking to buy a
new CPU for your computer you come
across another Linus Tech tips video and
after watching you're convinced you
should buy the one recommended in this
video so you scroll down and find
Linus's affiliate link to that product
now for those of you who don't know when
you click an affiliate link and buy
something The influencer Who promoted
the product earns a commission for
referring you to that store so you add
the product to your cart get to the
checkout page and hello honey says they
found you1 coupon codes sweet you click
apply discounts and honey gets to work
but unfortunately none of the coupon
codes work doesn't matter though because
as honey has promised us for years that
means we know we've got the best deal so
you complete your purchase you're happy
your new CPUs on the way lonus is happy
he's getting his commission everyone's
happy right well let's quickly rewind
and see what was happening behind the
scenes you see after clicking Linus's
affiliate link you'll notice in the Eur
L there's a tracking tag labeled short
circuit that's a reference to one of
Linus's YouTube channels and this
tracking tag is how new knows who to pay
a commission to we can also see that
this tracking tag has been saved on my
browser in the form of a cookie that
will expire in 30 days that way if we
only decide to complete the purchase a
few days later lonus will still be
credited the sale it's kind of like when
you're at a department store buying a TV
and the salesman who helped you gives
you a referral card or a receipt with
their name on it so when you eventually
get to the checkout counter the clerk
knows which salesman to award the sale
to you can think of affiliate cookies as
a digital version of that so what
happened when we got to the checkout
page well once honey popped up what what
happened to Linus's affiliate cookie
after we clicked apply
discounts you see that honey K Min
removed Linus's affiliate cookie and
replaced it with their own claiming
credit for the sale and pocketing the
commission money for themselves
yeah now if we quickly go back again we
can see what's causing this to happen
after clicking apply discounts what
you'll notice is that in the top left
corner of your browser honey discreetly
opens a small new tab which acts like a
simulated referral click as if they were
the ones to refer you to the website
even though you're already on the
website and at the checkout page once
that page has finished loading and has
stuffed PayPal's affiliate cookie the
tab automatically closes leaving you
blissfully unaware that anything ever
happened it's very sneaky now when I
first discovered this was happening I
thought there's no way why would all
these high profile influencers be
promoting a company that is actively
poaching their affiliate commissions it
didn't make any sense so to make sure I
wasn't going crazy I went on a honey
testing spree clicking one affiliate
link after another and it kept happening
but even after all those tests I scoured
the internet to see if anyone was
talking about this and found nothing
okay there was is one debate about it on
the Y combinator Forum but nothing
concrete besides that virtually nobody
was talking about this adding fuel to my
doubt so I figured screw it I'll reach
out to honey and ask them directly and
sure enough they came back to me with
the following if honey is activated and
is the last program used while shopping
on a site it is likely honey will
receive credit for the purchase I was
right and just like that my
investigation into honey began now some
might consider what PayPal's doing here
dirty or highly une
but personally I can't see how it's
anything short of fraud I mean just
imagine something like this happening in
a real world scenario let's say you're
at a department store looking to buy a
new TV a Salesman spends time running
you through your options you decide to
buy he gives you his referral card you
get to the checkout and right as you're
about to pay a sleazy salesman pops up
going hey should I check if I have any
coupon codes for you naturally you say
sure he snatches your referral card
without you ever noticing looks for
coupons says sorry no luck this time but
instead of handing back the original
referral card he hands back his own
PayPal didn't refer the customer to the
store they didn't promote any of the
products the salesman did that PayPal
provided absolutely zero value to the
customer yet they were rewarded for the
sale but because this is all happening
online buried behind clicks and cookies
and tracking data there's little to no
transparency that this is ever happening
okay but what if honey had found a
working coupon code would that that make
it okay for them to claim the commission
honestly no I don't think so the fact
remains that honey didn't refer the
customer to the store nor did they
promote the product look don't get me
wrong I'm a consumer myself saving money
matters especially when money's tied but
this scam doesn't just affect wealthy
influencers there are hundreds of
thousands of small creators bloggers
artists who rely on affiliate
commissions to support their craft sure
you could argue that honey may have
convinced the consumer to complete the
purchase by providing a discount but
let's be real if you're already at the
check out with your items in your cart
you already have a high intent to
purchase and again this would never fly
in a real life sales environment no
department store is going to allow a
Salesman to hang out at the checkout
counter casually handing out coupon
codes while simultaneously stealing
commissions from the other sales reps so
why are we allowing a corporate giant
like PayPal to do it on the internet now
believe it or not this first example I
just showed you with lonus is just one
of three scenarios in which honey po is
affiliate commissions and the next
scenarios are even worse but before I
show you how bad scenario 2 is it's
important you understand the fundamental
system honey is exploiting you see in
affiliate marketing there's this thing
called last click attribution which
basically means last click wins for
example you might click on a shoe
blogger's affiliate link for a pair of
Nikes but you don't buy right away later
you click on a YouTuber's link for the
same shoes and complete the purchase in
this scenario the YouTuber gets the
commission and the Blogger gets nothing
there are other models like first click
where the Blogger would win the
commission or dynamic click where the
commission is shared but the industry
went with last click because while it's
not always the fairest it's the easiest
to implement therefore it became the
industry standard now when it's blogger
versus YouTuber for a sale honestly I'd
say last click is usually fair but when
it's anyone versus honey there's no real
competition honey pops up right at the
end of your purchasing Journey virtu
guaranteeing they'll win that last click
they of course know this and do anything
they can to get that last click even
when there's no coupon codes to offer
which brings us to scenario 2 honey gold
which is now called PayPal rewards
here's how it works when you get to the
checkout and honey gold is available
honey pops up and is essentially saying
hey you consumer click this button here
so payal can claim the commission for
the sale and we'll share a portion of
that commission money with you in the
form of points
it's basically a lame cashback game and
it's genius because if there are no
coupons to offer but the store is
participating in honey gold it gives
honey another reason to get that last
click how can YouTubers bloggers or any
other type of affiliate fairely compete
against this type of mechanism of course
the consumer is going to click and of
course they're going to win the sale now
this got me thinking how much of their
commission are they actually sharing
with users well to find out I decided to
put honey gold to the test so I look for
any website where honey gold was offered
and found it on nordvpn and know this is
not a sneaky sponsorship so I signed up
for nordvpn's affiliate program which
offers 40% Commission on successful
referrals after getting approved into
the program I received a custom
affiliate link for my YouTube channel
using this link I made two separate
purchases for the first I activated
honey gold and sure enough you can see
my affiliate cookie was replaced with
Honeys and for the second I didn't
activate honey gold as expected I was
awarded a $35 commission for the sale
where honey gold wasn't activated and
received nothing when honey gold was
activated for the first time I
experienced honey poaching my own
affiliate commission so how much of my
stolen $35 commission did PayPal sharers
cash back with my honey account aka the
consumer brace yourselves 89 points
which is equivalent to 89 cents USD
that's right honey poached a $35
commission for doing nothing and
rewarded me a grand total of
$89 thanks PayPal you really shouldn't
have no seriously you really shouldn't
have now on to scenario 3 for you ladies
out there let's say you're looking for a
new outfit your favorite influencer
tries on something that slays you click
on their affiliate link and get to the
checkout but in this scenario honey
knows it has nothing to offer no coupon
codes no honey gold yet it still pops up
to announce absolutely nothing annoying
as [ __ ] naturally you click the got it
button to get rid of the Annoying
dancing coin and whoa what's that PayPal
takes the sale why because [ __ ] you Mary
that's
your but wait there's more my personal
favorite is when honey has nothing to
offer so pops up offering you to check
out with PayPal even though the option
is already available at the checkout
page and of course if you click the
checkout button
PayPal poaches the
sale classy as I was saying honey uses
any excuse possible to get that last
click from the user it's absolutely
disgusting I can't even begin to Fathom
how much money has been lost at the
hands of this browser extension imagine
being the influencers who promoted honey
telling your audience who by the way are
the most likely to use your affiliate
links to download an app that poaches
your affiliate sales it's crazy now to
to be clear not every influencer who
promoted honey engages in affiliate
marketing so those who don't are
obviously unaffected but did any of the
influencers who are engaging in
affiliate marketing ever catch on to
what Honey's been doing well it turns
out yes at least one of them did lus
Tech tips who have been promoting honey
since
2017 so here's how I found this out you
see one day I was browsing Linus's Forum
to see if anyone had raised the red flag
about honey and sure enough back in 2020
someone sounded the alarm but it was
ultimately ignored however in 2022 a
different user noticed that lmg were no
longer promoting honey and asked the
team if they had been dropped as a
sponsor to which one of less' employees
responded with we entered the
partnership with honey due to the way
their service interacted with affiliate
links essentially if someone clicked on
an affiliate link and then they used
honey and search for a deal honey will
override that tracking link even if they
don't find you a deal that didn't drive
with us so we ended the partnership okay
so they had no idea this was happening
and it took them several years to catch
on that's quite telling because we're
talking about a tech saavy YouTube
channel that's run by a very large team
the fact it took them several years to
figure this out in my opinion really
underscores the deceptive nature with
which honey operates if lus and his team
didn't know I can't imagine many other
influencers would have known either now
I have to say as a longtime viewer and
supporter of Linus's Channel I'm
incredibly disappointed they weren't
more public with this discuss
I get this specific issue doesn't
directly affect their viewers but surely
they must have realized the wider impact
this could be having on the creative
Community a community they're a part of
I think that matters and it's not as
though they only promoted honey once or
twice they did approximately 160
sponsored segments all of which remain
Live on YouTube those videos have
accumulated around 194 million views
according to my data that makes Linus's
company lmg the third largest promoter
of honey on YouTube so yeah in my
opinion they should have made more noise
about this but what's truly baffling to
me is that after lmg ended their
partnership with honey they then went
ahead and partnered with a company
called karma now a coupon browser
extension that literally engages in
similar Behavior now I did reach out to
almg about the situation and I'll be
honest their response was not to my
satisfaction they didn't address the
majority of my questions however they
did at least provide some important cont
text about their dealings with honey lmg
stated that as soon as these issues with
honey were brought to us we tried to
work with them to remedy them after a
few cause we were informed that they
weren't willing to change so we stopped
working with them across all channels so
let me get this straight one of Honey's
biggest promoters goes to them and says
hey can you please stop overriding our
affiliate links and honey effectively
goes n not happening assuming I've got
that correct and if true that just goes
to show what little regard honey has not
only for Content creators but also their
Partners now as for lmg's less than
ideal response I did press Linus's team
to address the rest of my questions but
never heard back from them but it's time
to shift gears because unfortunately
this scam runs much deeper than stolen
affiliate commissions it's time we talk
about how honey used these influences to
sell you a complete lie how they sold
you a product that was doing the
opposite of what they promised you see
as I was testing honey across different
stores I was encountering a reoccurring
issue when I reached the checkout page
honey would claim it couldn't find me
any coupon codes yet when I searched
manually I found working codes with
these and even when honey did find me a
code I was often able to find another
code of bit value kind of strange given
their claim that well thanks to Honey
manually searching for coupon codes is
now a thing of the past another Oddity
was that honey would often only find me
honey branded coupon codes such as honey
5 or honey 10 why would a store only
have honey branded coupon codes kind of
weird right but the biggest red flag was
that when I tried submitting the better
coupon codes I'd found honey wasn't
adding them to their database so why not
well eventually I figured out what was
going on it turns out that one of the
key benefits for stores partnering with
honey is that they are given full
control over which coupon codes go live
on the platform if any at all I
discovered this while listening to a
podcast produced by Honey which appears
to be aimed at attracting new businesses
to joining their platform in this
podcast an employee from the Australian
clothing store Princess Polly discusses
the benefits of partnering with honey
what would you say to any brand that is
considered working with honey but hasn't
yet I would say missing out on
converting customers like I said before
jet is super discount sey you can't
ignore the fact that they will hunt for
like discount codes and they might find
a better deal with honey you can also
control the discount code percentage
which means like they will potentially
find a higher discount code on the
internet it literally lets you control
like the customer Journey convert and
control like the discount code
percentage as well this is insane she's
basically saying honey is great for
businesses because it encourages users
not to bother hunting for coupon codes
and it allows businesses to control
which coupon codes are shared with
consumers now I was able to further
verify this on Honey's website
specifically the FAQ page for partners
which clearly states as a partner you
have control over the content hosted on
the honey platform so yes even if honey
knows of a coupon code that offers say
20% off but a partnering store tells him
hey only share 5% off coupon then that's
the only discount honey will apply to
your cart at the checkout page I mean
holy [ __ ] honey wasn't finding you the
best deals possible they were
intentionally withholding them from you
for their own financial gain this
completely invalidates Honey's core
value proposition to Consumers for years
they sold you the lie that they would
find you every working coupon code on
the internet and apply the best one to
your car but nope complete and utter lie
they have literally been feeding you
coupon codes that were approved by the
partner stores who were paying them and
can I just say the double messaging here
is hilarious because on one hand honey
has appealed to Consumers by promising
to find the best deals possible but on
the other hand they appeal to businesses
claiming that honey helps prevent
consumers from finding the best deals
it's absurd now when you think about it
this all makes complete sense I mean why
would any online business pay honey for
sharing their highest value coupon codes
with its 20 million users that's not an
appealing partnership whatsoever so to
make a partnership more attractive honey
told businesses hey if you partner with
us and pay us an affiliate commission
we'll let you control which discount
codes are shared on our platform and
we'll tell our cons
we scoured the internet and found them
the best deal possible everybody wins
just uh not the consumers or the
influencers with this discovery I
decided to do a thorough audit of
Honey's advertising campaigns and yikes
the ads the sponsorships everywhere you
look it's lie after lie I wouldn't be
surprised if this ends up going down as
one of the most aggressive Shameless
marketing scams of the century just look
at this insane list of videos that were
sponsored by honey according to my data
they sponsored almost 5,000 videos
across roughly 1,000 different YouTube
channels racking up an unbelievable 7.8
billion views it's crazy so now that we
have a clearer picture of how honey
operates let's reflect on some of their
claims honey will find every working
code on the internet and apply the best
one to your cart if honey can't find a
discount code for you then you can rest
assured there's not a single discount or
promo code on the Internet it's a free
browser extension that automatically
find find you the best promo code for
anything you purchase online you
literally don't spend money honey
searches the known internet for every
promo code ever used this means you
always get the best deals without even
trying what honey does is take money and
they put it in your pocket if there is
any way to save money on your purchase
they'll find it getting you the lowest
prices possible at checkout you are
always going to get the best deal no
matter where you're shopping Amazon eBay
Best Buy doesn't matter Honey's got your
butt covered if honey can't find a code
you have the best deal it really puts
into perspective
just how Shady this company is doesn't
it now believe it or not the bitter
Business Bureau launched an inquiry into
Honey's advertising claims but after
honey immediately discontinued the
claims for quote business reasons the
BBB decided to drop the
case honestly at this point in my
investigation I thought I'd seen the
worst of it I thought I understood the
full picture of Honey Shady business
model but here's the thing what I
haven't told you is that there were
instances where honey would actually
work really well Finding Me In
incredible discounts that seemed almost
too good to be true now it wasn't very
often but enough to confuse me and there
were even times when they weren't
poaching affiliate commissions by
claiming the credit for sales these
inconsistencies Bugg me it didn't add up
with everything else I had discovered it
was clear I was missing something well
once I finally figured out what that was
I uncovered an even darker side to
PayPal scam one that targeted an
entirely new victim
we started having problems where
customers would get in touch by our
support saying oh hey I just tried to
use this discount this 60% off coupon
and it doesn't work I'd be like dude
that is that is not your discount like
how did you get that and they'd be like
oh I I just showed up through the honey
extension yeah it cost us thousands and
I haven't even looked into how far back
it went the end of the day like we need
to make the numbers work and if honey is
going to steal temp % of your Revenue
all the time you're going to have to
raise prices at the end of the day and
it's it's just like a really awful
business model if we've been so mad at
them for so long
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