Honey (coupon browser extension) scam

That's shady -- the Edge built in Coupon thing is pretty good tho.

Edit: that 20min vid could have been a text tho
 
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Also a security risk - I hope honey has good security and I hope doesn’t handle PCI or PII data..

I wonder if it’s also selling all uour URL lookups too.
 
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I just stuck a cheeky short on PayPal, hopeful they get a bit of a battering in the markets tomorrow.

This is such blatant fraud it's actually commendable. To do this for so long and get away with it is insane. Whoever's behind it is going to have an interesting time ahead :D

Sidenote - I buy absolutely nothing recommended by YouTubers. Nothing. No ridge wallets, no VPNs, no browser extensions, nothing.


I look at influencer marketing as marketing that won't pass scrutiny on the "traditional" channels and therefore likely a scam / dodgy / crap products.
 
Diddums said:
I just stuck a cheeky short on PayPal, hopeful they get a bit of a battering in the markets tomorrow.

This is such blatant fraud it's actually commendable. To do this for so long and get away with it is insane. Whoever's behind it is going to have an interesting time ahead :D

Sidenote - I buy absolutely nothing recommended by YouTubers. Nothing. No ridge wallets, no VPNs, no browser extensions, nothing.


I look at influencer marketing as marketing that won't pass scrutiny on the "traditional" channels and therefore likely a scam / dodgy / crap products.
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I'm also anti influencer.
Generally if an influencer is pushing something I'm asking "why".
I'll actively avoid anything pushed by third parties. It's like the wild West with that type of advertising

Usually the comments are rigged too. You see the same "great product.. Just arrived today" type comments. And no negatives.
 
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dlockers said:
Initially it was no different to Quidco/Topcashback. Guess they got greedy.
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I don't use Quidco every time either, I would check prices on hotels through Quidco and then another not through Quidco, and then another incognito. It is almost always all different prices. I have seen prices being higher on Quidco than not, only to get the money in cashback a year later. I rather not pay it up front.
 
It's not a scam apart from to the people advertising it.

affiliate links are a scam anyway, they should just reduce the prices...

Terminal_Boy said:
Oh noes, did something that sounded too good to be true turn out to be a scam?
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all it does it replace influencer affiliate links with its own, and the influencers promoted it for money no questions asked, It's hilarious
you know the small bit of code on amazon links, they just changed who the referrer is :D
no one using it got scammed, only the people who promoted it ;)

They are only bothered because they are losing money... they wouldn't care if it was a crypto coin and the viewers lose money
 
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The claim (towards the end) that it also explicitly does not include 'better' discount codes which exist, but that the retailer has requested that Honey doesn't use is even more nefarious than the affiliate link replacement shenanigans. i.e. all of the Honey advertising claiming that 'you'll always get the best deal' is just plain lying.

From the couple of clips right and the end trailing the 'part 2' it looks like it even screws the retailers overs too! Hope PayPal get hammered over this if true.
 
Diddums said:
I just stuck a cheeky short on PayPal, hopeful they get a bit of a battering in the markets tomorrow.

This is such blatant fraud it's actually commendable. To do this for so long and get away with it is insane. Whoever's behind it is going to have an interesting time ahead :D

Sidenote - I buy absolutely nothing recommended by YouTubers. Nothing. No ridge wallets, no VPNs, no browser extensions, nothing.


I look at influencer marketing as marketing that won't pass scrutiny on the "traditional" channels and therefore likely a scam / dodgy / crap products.
Click to expand...
I think the worst I've seen was the "Better Help" online therapy thing that was doing the rounds, I dread to think about how much harm that has done but there's a few accounts out there on how utterly dire it is.

The various "gamer fuel" supplements make me cringe too, literally dodgy pre-workout for people sat on their backsides playing video games all day.
 
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arknor said:
It's not a scam apart from to the people advertising it.

no one using it got scammed, only the people who promoted it ;)
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Incorrect !
Did you watch the video ?

To the consumer, Honey is advertised as ‘it will get you the best price possible’, and ‘it will find you the best coupon available’
Sellers can pay Honey a monthly fee, which allows them to manage the coupons which can be used by the buyer. So it’s not the best price available. In many cases Honey failed to apply any coupon code for the seller, even though a manual search easily found some .

Also, in one example a customer received Honey points, instead of the money off discount.
The points were worth 89c , but the discount should have been $35.

The people being scammed are:
  1. The buyer
  2. The seller
  3. The promoter / influencer
 
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arknor said:
It's not a scam apart from to the people advertising it.

affiliate links are a scam anyway, they should just reduce the prices...


all it does it replace influencer affiliate links with its own, and the influencers promoted it for money no questions asked, It's hilarious
you know the small bit of code on amazon links, they just changed who the referrer is :D
no one using it got scammed, only the people who promoted it ;)

They are only bothered because they are losing money... they wouldn't care if it was a crypto coin and the viewers lose money
Click to expand...

I think the end users could and did get scammed. If they believed the code being offered are always the best one, which is not. Except it states it to be.

The whole thing seems to work like:-

Honey sponsors influencers in a video, paying them X amount.
Swap out affiliate links to steal money on the back end to make that sponsored money back, playing the long game that it will generate more money in the longer term.
Signing deals with stores to give them Honey specific codes, likely the code also would give them a commission when used and generate more profit that way too. This will also reduce the end user's discount as it does not give the best code to the user.
 
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