Addressing the Honey Scam...

[@DevilboyScooby]

This is totally unacceptable. I will discuss this with my BetterHelp therapist as soon as i get back from visiting my plot of land in Scotland!

[@d3stiny117]

Wild crossover appears!

[@mikiahdavis2458]

😂😂😂

[@AdApT3Rx]

😂

[@KatoJac]

Hopefully you checked honey first for coupon codes before you bought your plot of land!

[@MorbidGalaxy]

Will you be discussing it with your therapist while using opera gx and nord vpn?

[@bdub0983]

It works for honey coupons... But it doesn't find the best coupons available. So it doesn't work, not as advertised.

[@Che1seabluesdrogba11]

Fr, it's as if he missed that part of Megalag's video.

[@UrSammich]

I have a theory why that might be. I think what honey does in pretty much like a low sweep search like google. In google if you usually search up X coupons, it brings you up to those coupon sites with expired codes. I think honey does something similar so 90% of the time it finds old coupons and maybe if lucky it'll bring up that 10% of recent coupons. Most businesses usually lock coupons now behind email/subscriptions anyway. So pretty much honey forces the consumer to buy its membership to get the deals. I can't prove it, but it kind of makes a little sense.

[@LookingToTheMax]

​@Che1seabluesdrogba11 did either of you watch past the first 2 minutes?

[@bubbledoubletrouble]

@@Che1seabluesdrogba11 More like it's as if both of you missed the parts of the video where he talks about that 6:21 6:52 7:05 7:55

[@baileycw15]

One would think Honey coupons worked for Honey...

[@Raansu]

I had the addon installed for a long time and honestly, I feel like it only found working coupons on a handful of occasions. Most of the time it was just in the way with its popups and I eventually removed it.

[@LukeTR2000]

I was finding this too. I only kept it in the end to see the price history of a product but if they're editing affiliate links/cookies I'm not willing to use even that.

[@ChristianBehnke]

And it seriously went downhill after PayPal acquired them.

[@paulroberto2286]

​@@LukeTR2000 not only that, but it gives businesses the option to limit the % discount on coupons found. So, for example, if a store has a 35% coupon code out there in the internet, and the business selects the option provided by Honey, then instead of showing that 35% coupon to the customer, Honey will say "we found a 10% off coupon". This makes the customer think that 10% is the best, when in fact there was a 35% coupon available all along. This is literally the opposite of Honey's "best deal" claim. imo this is Fraud by Paypal (owners of honey)

[@Ok-kf8xg]

I never got a discount XD. Whenever I needed to free up RAM, Honey was the 1st one to be removed and then stopped installing it since like 2018

[@chinesesparrows]

I dont trust free javascript extensions that earn millions, the business model is highly suspect

[@mmillennial]

No, Honey is NOT doing what it advertises. It claims to search the internet for coupon codes to save you the most money possible, when in reality, it only uses coupon codes that have been selected by the selling website.

[@embiggenedbadger4297]

Correct. I'm flabbergasted that he just skimmed over this entire concept while smirking and laughing it off. I wasn't even two minutes into the video!

[@christianjuarez5578]

Didn’t he mention it at 7:00?????

[@christianjuarez5578]

@@embiggenedbadger42977:00??? Hello didn’t he just say it?

[@flabbycubing3709]

@@embiggenedbadger4297 did u watch the whole video?

[@justjack3075]

It sometimes finds good coupons that can't be found manually. As a consumer using it properly I lost nothing

[@SusanaOliveira-n4v]

“ i hope that this is A lesson for you “made me laugh…you should be a lesson for YOU AUSTIN

[@Flowbee_89]

Yeah idk why he said that. Pisses me off!

[@TyTyTy87]

Ikr! What a goober

[@flabbycubing3709]

eh

[@AutoYoung]

Honey and Better Help need to be GONE!!!

[@marlyz8995]

Paypal and general needs to go, they've been scummy for years now, straight up robbing people from their hard earned money

[@pembatamang8233]

What is better help doing?

[@AutoYoung]

@ They got caught selling their clients info to companies based on the mental illness they had or what they were going through. Basically taking private info you’re trusting a therapist who’s supposed to help you with was being sold to big corporations…

[@PeterZin]

Ya what’s they doing?

[@thestreamer3513]

​@@PeterZinpeople have really bad experiences with their therapists pretty commonly and they seem to be doing nothing about it

[@watercannonscollaboration2281]

Funnily enough, ever since PayPal bought Honey, I felt like the coupon plugin didn’t work as well as it used to

[@fredericoespinoza]

this, it was good before, after paypal bought it i barely got any fkn coupons. That being said honey DID save me thousands of dollars, but now i feel cheated as they basicly screwed everyone to get those discounts

[@brandchan]

I feel the same. I used to get good coupons all the time and then it just stopped.

[@elenabob4953]

It NEVER functioned as it was advertised because it is clearly stated in their partnership program that if you join you WILL CONTROL the price.

[@LinkAlmeida]

Even funnier is that PayPal belongs is one of Musk's companies. What better way to get even richer than stealing other peoples money without them even noticing.

[@ToyJesusLovesTequilla]

Definitely stopped working as well when PayPal bought them, I remember it use to be better and I would get more cash back points but now I only get a discount code every once in a while 😢

[@Hbk1998G]

There's NO WAY! Honey found a cupon for me when Ive bought my land in Scotland to become a Lord, and for my personal therapist on Better Help...also on Keeps to keep my hair when im angry cause i lose in World of Tanks. But i always use my Raycon earbuds which ive bought with a honey discount. 😢

[@tsl7881]

I was castle shopping too. What a rip-off.

[@kiii9403]

Reading your comment I just spit out the water I drank out of my air up

[@bc7702]

You forgot about all those nights raid shadow legends comforted you...

[@anavgoel9223]

Just needed that touch of raid shadow legends and manscaped

[@colestowing8695]

😂😂😂

[@heideroosje12]

Bro a lesson for us???? A lesson for you! Without you i never knew about honey in the first place!

[@Silence-bq7kq]

Yeah is a scammer too

[@MicrofoneDC]

I still don't understand how this guy has any relevance on KZbin

[@JJFX-]

He only did this for the drama views and turned it into half of an ad to justify himself. He's a grifter. Always has been, always will be.

[@joshbrown811]

​@@MicrofoneDC probably from people watching and commenting on his videos. Couldn't be us tho

[@tsl-p4q]

ikr

[@raphaeltoast]

I've saved big money too, with Honey. However, on more than one occasion I've found better coupons outside of Honey that weren't included in the list. So to find out that's by design - that Honey was basically keeping the best coupons hidden from me - while actively telling me 'don't look for better deals'... Seems the very point of Honey was a lie.

[@bluegizmo1983]

The really sad part is that all these influences helped Honey amass over 17 million users, which are now _ALL_ affecting every single person who has affiliate links because every time one of those 17 million users clicks on _anyones_ affiliate link to buy something, Honey is stealing the sale.

[@markstephenson6744]

@@bluegizmo1983 Honey is stealing the sale and also deciding whether you get the highest discount code or one that benefits them more than giving you the best deal.

[@mmuller2402]

Hey honey is like cancer which you cant take out 😂

[@konflict1231]

lmao yeah so sad here let me play my tiny little violin for them lmaoooooooo

[@elenabob4953]

Not only that but they aren't giving you the highest value for the coupon because that is the deal with the partner companies and sometimes they put a 60%reduction for the product even if the seller NEVER proposed in their history such product price cut Ahh but that's NOT all. The same team that sold Honey for 20 billions to Paypal is proposing now the newest scam "PIE" extension that will show you only what commercials you want and they will give you some money for that. More details on Upper Echelon channel, the video is called "Exposing the"PIE" Influencer Disaster.

[@xXVibrantSnowXx]

@@konflict1231 Lmao

[@vaGin0]

If it sounds too good to be true, it’s too good to be true.

[@Padlock_Steve]

bbl is worth it tho

[@RichardFraser-y9t]

always was and always will be

[@elijahcity6239]

Honey definitely not sweet

[@FreshKitty]

Maybe, but just searching for codes sounds too good to be true as well, but that works just fine. Doesn't seem insane for a company to gather your data just to provide codes, but they did it horribly.

[@Carter-um8cl]

@@elijahcity6239 lol nope

[@princeofhalcyon]

I respect actually talking about this instead of just pretending it didn't happen and not answering questions.

[@mrronmexico8313]

Oh you mean like Linus lol. Who found out they were doing this years ago and never brought it up or condemned them for it on his huge platform.

[@antolepage26]

If you're trying to throw shade at LMG, he confirmed they would be talking about it on the WAN show (this friday)

[@aerosw1ft]

​@@antolepage26after initially finding out about it and not telling anyone, AND THEN worked with another sponsor that literally works the same way LMAO

[@JKjoKErz]

@@antolepage26you saying that like he found out last night not years ago🙄

[@VicViperR102]

@@antolepage26 Hmm. I wonder why.

[@mikesunboxing]

We have been trying to highlight the problem with honey for years but as a small channel not many people listened or shared the information, glad the truth is finally coming out to the mainstream

[@rory-red]

I look at all videos even small channels i never seen anything about honey till saw Megalag's video

[@mikesunboxing]

@@rory-red when it got really popular just before the covid era we noticed that our own affiliate stats suddenly went down the toilet and it coincided with the massive push from honey advertising and larger channels recommending it. We noticed that the honey extension was killing off affiliate links to other channels we were trying to support and highlighted this in our live streams as a heads up to viewers that like to support creators that honey was stealing links.

[@themadmoderator8465]

yeah as they relazied they werent making money lol

[@mikesunboxing]

@@themadmoderator8465 yeah it’s true, it seemed like a cool thing until it wasn’t

[@Ohits_OT]

Megalag had around your amount of followers before the video 🤷🏾‍♂️

[@DarkKielx]

This is why I use an ad blocker. Whenever aTuber promotes anything, I immediately skip or ignore the ad. I pay for KZbin Premium to avoid seeing ads altogether because almost every advertisement is entirely irrelevant to me.

[@mrkiky]

The more a company tries to push a product, the more likely it's garbage or nefarious. Plus you know if they're spending a lot on marketing, there's less spent on the actual product.

[@kooldogkid149]

Don’t you mean sponserblock? Although, a adblocker is essential these days

[@drbjr8223]

@@kooldogkid149 both are

[@K3NZO_]

Not only irrelevant but 99% of them are scams… I’ve concluded that “Marketing” is legalized scamming.

[@mashaa.7509]

i like to see what youtubers are promoting because depending on what it is i might stop supporting them

[@rubikfan1]

Some people claimed this years ago. But finaly its going viral. Honey is done for.

[@erichill414]

Yep I’ve seen a couple videos about it that were posted years ago.

[@90sMillenial]

Markiplier talked about it 4 years ago

[@yensteel]

My biggest gripe now is that there's not much evidence of theft. They've been caught with the method. But in court, prosecutors also need to prove how much has been rerouted. Honey's cookie method hides a lot of this evidence, so it's up to the prosecutors to ask Honey to disclose their financials, which is likely going to be obfuscated with losses Hollywood-accounting style.

[@robsquared2]

I doubt it. There's a lot of terrible things we thought we were done with. Just look at the last decade of politics.

[@konflict1231]

nothing will happen to honey, this is fake manufactured outrage by these influencers cause theyre butthurt about their precious little affiliate links. No one actually cares. The real consumers will continue to use it

[@fujster]

1:37 No. It quite literally does not do what it advertises. The sponsors all say you will get the BEST deal. And you will not. There's better deals online but the shops partner with Honey to give you a lower promo code based on what they set it to, in exchange for a 3% store commission

[@d3stiny117]

He covers that around 6:31

[@aldocamarena995]

@@d3stiny117 yeah but he shouldn't have said it in the first place tho, edit it out

[@YulHolic24]

Honey basically strong hold shops and brands into partnering with them or they will dig up your 90% off coupon, imo that’s just a type of gangsters protection racket, pay up or we will ruin your business

[@SnugglesPrime]

Even the Megalag video says sometimes it does work fully as intended, which is weird. He showed a coupon code of him getting a $35 item for free. So, hey, sometimes it does work.

[@RobRoeder53]

Yeah he covers that. Maybe next time watch the video before commenting.

[@topwomble]

'It works' - err no, it does not work as advertised as it will give you worse options sometimes and sometimes it will give you better deals but at the cost of the stores themselves

[@flabbycubing3709]

watch the whole vid before commenting lol

[@topwomble]

@flabbycubing3709 No

[@flabbycubing3709]

@@topwomble ok buddy

[@jinx8624]

​@flabbycubing3709dude austin isn't paying u to be his little knight in glazing armour 😂😂😂

[@yeetgod1144]

8:39 It's not just influencers who partner with Honey, It's any and all influencers who use affiliate links.

[@decshado69]

Affiliate links themselves are not a problem whatsoever. All it does is track who refers you to a product and pay that person. Clicking an affiliate link does not increase the price for the consumer to where that difference is paid to the influencer, its literally just a small percentage of that sale that you would have made anyway going to whoever refers you.

[@PtrkHrnk]

I'm thinking, that's the demographic that has the most in right to win a class action lawsuit, but also the least evidence.

[@wentafew]

You NAILED it. They not only hurt themselves, they hurt ALL other people trying to make money from affiliate marketing.

[@JBobjork]

@@decshado69 Noone is saying affiliate links is a problem, the problem is that if you use honey the affiiliate links from the influencer whos link you clicked is replaced with PayPals, which means the money goes to Honey/Paypal, instead of the influencer.

[@jinnimoo]

"It does what it advertises" ummm it evidently doesn't? It promises to find you the 'best deal' which has been exposed as NOT true.

[@Crockdinebuty]

true why is he saying that lol

[@tonyhill6721]

He lost credibility with that statement.

[@Bot.number.69420]

Best deal for Honey.

[@justanoman6497]

He *thought* it did, because it did do something. That is just badly phrased and not properly contextualized.

[@AlessandroBalestrini-jd3zk]

Watch the rest of the video, he explains what he means and that he agrees with megalag

[@chadhowell1328]

Can’t imagine this gets too far without a class action lawsuit of some type

[@DMartins-mn9dt]

Well, if everyone stops using them, then they WILL be gone.

[@chadhowell1328]

@@jamesinnit1611you mean stealing money from affiliates for doing nothing? Do you take the tips off the tables of waiters before they get there also?

[@jesusramirezromo2037]

​@@jamesinnit1611 Collusion with companies is a crime, not to mention false advertising

[@phoneywheeze]

​@@chadhowell1328they're not stealing affiliates, it's the user who click on honey to find promo codes who give permissions. If anything it's the users who are giving the revenue to honey instead of creators.

[@max_rove]

@@jamesinnit1611 Did you even listen to the whole video before opening your mouth and spouting foolishness?

[@barrak2k059]

It always seemed to good to be true + I was lazy to ever do it lmao

[@sopcannon]

i tried it twice never saved any money, uninstalled it.

[@LegionVThree]

there was one time i order papa johns online for a group and it was like $55, honey somehow brought it down to like $20, i was kinda blown away. Then it never worked again lol

[@Rayzajw]

I was too poor and the coupons never worked so i un-installed it lmao 😂😂😂

[@MoonkaCake]

I tried it. It added to many steps for check out lol. So I gave up and deleted it. I much rather use creator code at checkout then whole web browser extension.

[@cristobalbarra583]

@@sopcannon i used it and it worked for me like 3 times, tbf i was buying pricey stuff so maybe thats why, wouldnt be surprised that for cheap items it doenst do anything

[@jamesfigueroa8610]

Never trust a youtuber's endorsement. They don't do due diligence.

[@YesInMyBackyard]

Well many did, like LTT, but also honey changed over time to be more terrible

[@awesomereviews1561]

@@YesInMyBackyardand he was a huge ass for not telling anyone.

[@apostateunion]

SponsorBlock got me covered

[@volundrfrey896]

@@YesInMyBackyard LTT took ages to figure it out, and they probably only noticed it because their bottom line was affected. Not to mention they didn't tell people about it.

[@lucaschenJC]

@@YesInMyBackyard imagine still trusting LTT

[@knection1986]

It doesn't need to be a lesson for me Austin. It needs to be a lesson for YOU...

[@mysticrose0012]

Ikr likes its ur guys fault for using the thing he promoted... shame on you guys for not doing ur research😂.. like huh??

[@ripscort1896]

@@mysticrose0012 don't come here with that BS Teacher logic "its not his fault for slapping you, its yours for not ducking"

[@Hsuperman18]

So, honey can go bad? Another lie we've been told. -_-

[@Ok-kf8xg]

Sike, was bad probably since the beginning

[@demise1]

@@Ok-kf8xg The joke was Honey, the Food item, Dosent go bad.

[@theterrarianman1018]

yeah, honey going bad? You cant bee serious.

[@stacefacemarie]

​@@demise1 it uhm. It ferments into mead.

[@charlesgarage-ur9bp]

it saves us money lmao

[@sshum00]

It’s not just honey. It’s PayPal. So if no influencers work with PayPal anymore then it might hurt them more. They don’t call them the PayPal mafia for no reason

[@fredericoespinoza]

ebay / paypal. wont ever stop man

[@lucidnonsense942]

Honey was coded this way before it was sold to PayPal. It's just that as more stores got forced into its protection racket, the more coupons it hid. The original team behind it has a new scam extension called PIE Ad blocker, that's even worse than Honey.

[@Mainyehc]

Yep. I began using PayPal on ebay and, as it was a seemingly safe and definitely convenient filter for my credit card (and, incredibly, more efficient than even our own national payment system for local purchases!), I also started using it for many other purchases. This is too egregious for me to want to keep using PayPal as a service and I think I know which alternatives to use, but as for ebay, especially the second-hand marketplace/auction part…? What is even available as of now?

[@emmasdad5426]

Never believe anything a youtuber or social media person promotes and you wont be scammed and wont help scam others.

[@legojenn]

It’s good to get a plugin that skips over their in-video ads. Let’s hope that they don’t get corrupted

[@jaystarr6571]

@@legojenn V3

[@emmasdad5426]

@ they mostly don’t do pop up ads anymore. It’s all in video made.

[@Dekken88]

...How can you say Honey does what it say itdoes at the end of the day? You watched MegaLag's video, you should know it does not. It claims it will find you the best deals but it has agreements with the shops to actually not do that.

[@donaldlyons17]

How is Honey making money off finding customers the best deal?

[@viro_]

Interestingly, KZbinrs who promoted Honey could potentially file a class-action lawsuit, claiming they were misled about the true nature of the extension, which harmed their reputation.

[@chasejackson7248]

Or if they would of looked into it instead of taking the money they would see what it's doing.

[@GMAceM]

7:32 the way I understood the source video wasn’t so much that Honey was shaking down stores/businesses but more like they we’re facilitating the deals that were less beneficial to the consumer. In other words it felt more like the stores themselves wanted only the “eh” coupons to be shown so that they would reap more profits. Honey is still scummy in this scenario but it also shows that businesses themselves aren’t always looking out for the consumer either (obvious fact but wanted to clarify it anyways).

[@m4nt1c0r3s]

megalags part2 video is going to be about the shakedowns i think

[@rahbabchowdhury4504]

i don't get it. so why dont stores just dont make any large discount codes? dont they have control over those?

[@Neuzahnstein]

@@rahbabchowdhury4504 as far as i am understanding that are special codes like 10 year customer and should not leaked to the public. Honey now only shows this codes if you are not a partner otherwise honey controls the coupons.

[@TashJansson]

@@rahbabchowdhury4504 I'm also curious about this one, I hope it gets clarified in megalags next video. I'm gonna guess that the issue is at least two-fold, on one hand, there's a power dynamic between some (especially the smallest) stores and honey where they might have felt pressured into providing certain codes so that honey could provide big discounts *very rarely* so as to not lose their reputation as a discounts tool; the second thing, I'm guessing it's that the sheer volume of given discounts (even if they're underwhelming for them customer) would have been enough to financially strain smaller businesses. There's an even wose scenario where honey would not apply anycustomer-facing coupons, but would apply them on the store side, pocketing the difference, but that's just straight up evil...

[@JBobjork]

@@rahbabchowdhury4504 There might be discounts that are not for the public, like employee or some big customer or whatever, and they find that and applies it making the customer happy and the store owner sad. But it will be explained better in part two of the original video (not by this dude who opened by saying it works)

[@mhuffman1000]

Honey is gone. Unfair practices even if it were to benefit me is unacceptable.

[@randomquentin]

Honey is here to stay. I do not care that rich people are losing money. This really does not seem like an issue that the common man should care about. It should be resolved in court between other rich people

[@cennozoic5042]

Honey is also misleading consumers; its claim of offering the best deals is a lie, as its partner sellers manipulate the deals offered.

[@nicholasrigatos5279]

@@randomquentinbut thats the problem… probably the big youtubers are not victims and got good money from the sponsorships. The real victims are smaller affiliate marketing youtubers and the consumers who in fact didnt get the best deal.

[@tallnrough68]

@@randomquentinit’s not just about rich people losing money it’s also about honey not showing you the best deals like it says it will.

[@punya3597]

​@@randomquentinyeah but we also don't get the best deals when using honey because it prevents you from getting the actual good discount. Rather it uses a generic coupon which is submitted by the business owners themselves.

[@RoDude-r]

I'm uninstalling honey right now

[@lizzfrmhon]

Leave a bad review before uninstalling please. Help other be aware.

[@Vss077]

& get rid of spotify too. its a mafia that also scams. but surely spotify is fine cuz the double standard & good service will keep it ok

[@RoDude-r]

@@Vss077 I never really used spotify its more an ad company than anything else

[@salmanfarshi6073]

1:23 it doesn't work.they intentionally doesn't give you the best deal.just the ones that benefits them😊

[@F7INN]

1:37 you're wrong, it DOESN'T do what it advertises. Retailers partner with Honey, and pay them to deliberately HIDE promo codes from the user. They might pay honey to offer a 5 or 10% off code when there are better codes out there on the internet, and claim that theyve checked everything. For some retailers, they even tell users that there are no codes in existence and that the user has the best price, when actually there not only ARE codes readily available out there, the retailer has paid honey to not show them!

[@gamerstimes127]

Never trust youtube ads

[@ChaseMC215]

Except according to KZbin, you cannot do anything about it. Yeah, the feds would like a word with KZbin and Google on their anti-ad blocker crusade, because this is going too far.

[@ringod123]

"it works, it does what it advertises" - no it literally doesnt, that was the whole point of megalag's video, it purposefully omitted better coupons that existed and that you could find yourself if you tried while claiming it did the searching for you to find the best coupon....."I hope this is a lesson for you" - really? I hope this is a lesson for youtubers to vet their sponsors better for the sake of their viewers.....

[@Irongalaxies]

Was about to call BS on this myself. I had this shit app for about a year. It never saved me any money, never had any codes that worked. I got rid of it years ago.

[@Irongalaxies]

Oh now @austinevans media person out here deleting comments. Nice.

[@volrath__]

But if you did "vet" them you would have found nothing... Like you said that was the whole point of MegaLag's video... NO ONE KNEW (well a couple people worked it out) but it took a multi year investigation to truly uncover all of this... Almost any content creator would have thought they were legit because there wasnt a whole "hey this is dodgy" discussion around this, I dont think anyone really knew the extent of the scam

[@guiltygamerxrd]

It does sometimes, even Megalag said that towards the end. But it looked like he's going to do a follow up video regarding that. Personally it worked for me when I first had it (it even got me 20% off a $400 item), but for awhile now I did notice I had been able to find better codes on my own just searching for a few minutes. I thought Honey just got lazy, now I know it was more nefarious than that.

[@PaulHofreiter]

Influencers who get their bag will just do damage control and not really try and make themselves look bad by offering any real apology. Because the next scam that comes along they will take that bag too without doing any research beforehand. “It works” is hilarious because apparently Austin hasn’t actually paid attention to what the criticism is lol

[@GrumpyWolfTech]

1:23 No, it doesn't work, I NEVER had it find a coupon that actually worked.

[@cdeo4l668]

it did for me

[@CaptArgo24]

It's very hit or miss

[@TheTenseCloud]

I have had it find codes worked for me

[@ericcartman4923]

It’s worked for me

[@kingofbleh]

Same here, I think of the hundreds of purchases I've made, it only actually worked once. Not due to my niche hobbies and purchases, I've also used it plenty of times on mainstream websites like Walmart and Amazon. It just never helped other than like one time on g2a of all places lmao.

[@Chefoso89]

At this point, I'm not believing a single ad I see on YT anymore.

[@EvilTurkeySlices]

It’s more so that you should do more research on it before buying it. Some of those products are legitimately good, most are not.

[@CainBuckler]

All this video is doing is simply repeating everything mega lag said in a less detailed way to try to capture some of the views his video stirred up

[@saqlainhyder5412]

This is why I have sponsor block to skip those sponsered segments. As much as I want to trust my favorite content creator with whatever they advertise to me, there have been multiple instances where what they advertised are either shady or straight up scams.

[@jestes7]

That exists? Nice!

[@thelightsilent]

influencers: worked with honey and found out its a scam. Also influencers: we kept quiet about this scam even after we found out and stopped using it.

[@noelplum99]

Bingo!

[@najkiller1]

We are just cattle to both of em

[@benwu7980]

I find the timeline a little odd where it's just making 'news' now via Megalag's video and the subsequent videos from some other creators, yet the way it was taking affiliate revenue was stated quite clearly on the LTT sponsors forum by their business manager in early 2022, saying they wouldn't be working with them again. They'd maybe be called a little to blame for not talking about the issue on WAN show or something, like they've done with some other dropped sponsors, but that'd be somewhat of a harsh stance since they did make the info available. How Honey is now shown to be working with shops to hide best available offer to consumer, is really where my biggest gripe would be, and something that probably wasn't known at the time of being dropped. Would fully expect this story to feature on the next WAN show as it affects the audience, not the creator.

[@wentafew]

This has liability and class action smothered all over it. If I were an influencer that promoted Honey, I'd be crapping my pants. Even more so if it can be shown you were aware and did not inform those followers you sold it to

[@Silence-bq7kq]

He is one of them

[@MegaRhettButler]

Everything promoted by influencers is at best useless garbage and at worst a scam. I use sponsorblock and I'm not sorry.

[@renegeeder]

For example HelloFresh which seemed nice, is being sued for using child labor. Sponsorblock definitely seems like a necessary extension now to avoid these horrible companies.

[@mrkiky]

@@renegeeder I mean, it's not that necessary, you can manually skip it.

[@jaystarr6571]

Extensions slow me down too much.

[@paulcredmond]

Thanks for posting. I wasn't aware of this extension.

[@maybemymoney5764]

this is a stupid thing to say

[@joeh6632]

The real problem is that honey steals money from creators that never even promoted honey. I could careless about the creators that promoted honey.

[@Mrcrazyguy303]

Honestly, I’m starting to think Austin was in on the scam. I haven’t seen one comment from anyone saying that they saved any significant amount of money. The only time you hear about significant savings were in KZbinrs ads. For some reason, most influencers that did promotethis scam have already started themselves from honey, but Austin is defending the company with easily disapproval facts and it’s puzzling why he’s doing this.

[@TophMaGoats]

9:10 Nope. They claim to save you the most, and then only give you what their paid partners want to give you. Even if I have a better code and they know about it.

[@Callie456]

Exactly. I don't know why he keeps saying it works when he himself says it only shows you the codes the shops want you to see and NOT the best code out there.

[@Soraviel]

I stopped using honey 8 years ago. I knew I wasnt benefiting from them at all.

[@StellarJayEnthusiast]

Austin my man, it literally doesn't work the way it advertises... it rigged both ends of the coupon system... we the end users aren't saving any more than we would've had they not existed.. it also poisons the well for other creators.

[@norgaf]

Doesn’t look like you finished the video or paid attention.

[@hbkirb]

I don’t appreciate that he said that, but he does show later in the video that he understands the problem and why it’s not in fact as advertised. I guess he meant it does find promo codes, just not the “best” promo code?

[@spellfireforge]

@@norgafThat’s kind of the point though. The way he frames it for people who don’t watch all the way to the end - most YT viewers - the message is “this affected creators but it’s still great for you the consumer.” It’s like when fine print directly contradicts the claim.

[@SnugglesPrime]

Even the Megalag video says sometimes it does work fully as intended, which is weird. He showed a coupon code of him getting a $35 item for free. So, hey, sometimes it does work.

[@iLuseMy1v1s]

Literally 😵‍💫

[@roxcyn]

What does that teach us? If there are any sponsorships or advertising on social media it could be a scam.

[@raihanwidodo1042]

Influencers and youtubers need to be more careful about their choice of sponsorship, they need to learn how their sponsor business practices work and how they make money on a product that doesn't do exchange of currency with a simple common sense or a surface research of the product itself but sadly the 5 figures of sponsorship money makes them turn a blind eye

[@Busyshark92]

What?! KZbinrs were unknowingly pushing a scam? How could it be? The sponsorships felt like a scam and I typically avoided channels promoting it because it made the channel seem super shady. Perhaps KZbinrs didn’t know they were being scammed but I find it absolutely ridiculous KZbinrs didn’t know they were pushing a scam on their viewers.

[@tsl7881]

Yeah. I thought they were super smart...

[@Caseysilveus]

It isn’t a scam on the viewers it’s a scam on the creators advertising it

[@samholmes4249]

Literally watched the video on the bloke yesterday who exposed it. Sad that the influencers didn’t whistle blow when they’d realised… maybe ashamed?

[@iLuseMy1v1s]

Literally 😵‍💫

[@Malfin_L]

LTT moment

[@testtest8399]

Or maybe they didn't realize? I mean they were the ones losing affiliate revenue and end consumer(well at first) didn't really lose anything. And the part where they force businesses, how do you know when this started happening, I'd say before PayPal buyout they were too small to force anything on anyone.

[@ThomasReichJ]

​​@@testtest8399the original video addressed this. Lmg learned about the affiliate link stuff and dropped them

[@b4g4b3l]

do your background check before recommending crap to people

[@b1ackenra1n]

sometimes theres only so much research you can do. The truth isnt always clearly seeable....

[@jlinn12]

Easy to say that in retrospect, isn't it.

[@RedRan6er]

If you watch the video, they mentioned how hard it is to find anyone talking about their slimy schemes, so you cant really blame them, youre being unrealistic, the best thing these youtubers can do is expose honey

[@b4g4b3l]

@@RedRan6er i mean they are a "tech channel" if they cant figure thing out and they recommend things like this for money, how can you trust them with other recommendations ? do they recommend them just for the money or because they truly trust and believe the product ? just saying

[@looks-suspicious]

Information about how Honey actually works was not readily available until a few days ago. MegaLag had to spend a lot of time and money investigating the entire scheme. As a scam, it's quite clever, because it appears to work on the surface.

[@ryanduffy2152]

The comments are insane, "surprised this hasn't been talked about sooner" "I would never use this blah blah blah" "if it's too good to be true" took a dude several years to discover and investigate this, all of a sudden everyone acting like they're above it and knew the entire time. This isn't about you.

[@JamesSmith-sw3nk]

It's about your mother. We all call her Honey.

[@StuffJason437]

Exactly, money speaks louder then our safety.

[@aiwash2766]

Classic example of hindsight is 20/20

[@chinesesparrows]

cause i never install free javascript extensions that earns millions, its pretty obviously sus

[@TheDorkKnightPlays]

​@@chinesesparrows Do you look into the earning reports for every extension you install? 😂

[@SavageInstinct1180]

Anytime a product is free,you (the consumer) are the product.

[@majorgnu]

Not always. There are free products and services by charities, charitable individuals or adjacent to a real product. For example, Debian GNU/Linux. I usually try to understand the nature of the entity behind any product or service and what their business model is.

[@planetwawa]

Take a deeper look at Honey and their founders. It gets worse. A lot of lawsuits against them. For example it’s been said in court by multiple plaintiffs that honey science corporation stole the code, IP, and more. Secondly it’s alleged by the original investors that honey founders defrauded their first VC investors and lied. Also, it came out they were firing employees at a certain age (age discrimination) and also extorting early employees to give up their shares before PayPal bought them for $4b. In some cases - millions cheated. Also recently there has been inside trading allegations with the original investors in honey. Which looks similar to another investor scam with honey that took place several years ago. Lastly I believe much more will come out in the wash about Honey. Bigger allegations than fraud. And I’m looking forward to it.

[@publicspeaker4009]

PayPal needs to be sued.

[@mapplehitoritheartist9114]

i miss the days where sponsors only sold products like TVs or furniture...

[@LizzieBeezie]

All this is good, but the actual question is, as youtubers, are you and the others going to sue them or not because you obviously already got paid for the sponsorship?

[@EvilTurkeySlices]

Honestly that sponsorship probably ended up with them losing more money than they made for the ad.

[@sharni2116]

@@EvilTurkeySlicesI feel sorry for the creators who never even promoted honey and lost money through affiliates because the customer already had honey installed

[@andr101]

The moral of the story, don't trust influencers

[@RicardoMBonilla]

"A lesson for us"??? You were the one promoting a sh***y extension and now we're the ones that should learn the lesson? Oh, no, pal. If there's a lesson to be made is that we shouldn't trust you, influencer guys. Don't put the blame on us for trusting you.

[@flabbycubing3709]

it was not on purpose, i dont know why ur so mad lol

[@jinx8624]

​@flabbycubing3709because this video was meant to be more of an apology but instead was austin lying saying honey worked as advertised and then talked down to the audience as if he wasn't the one promoting a scam that part is clearly intentional and is such a shtty response

[@jmsiapno]

this guy dont care. he already got payed by honey.

[@Luzgar]

I never understood what their business model was. I just assumed it was the regular customer data reselling.

[@xpandorasboxx]

I've never had Honey work, had it installed for a bit, it never once found a coupon so I removed it after a while, haven't bothered touching it since

[@Dontbeevil-nh1xv]

This is insanely predatory. Every KZbinr who promoted this should make updates to tell consumers what is actually under the hood ... We’ve been sold a lie. 😔🤷

[@ryangonzales6542]

Honey did not work. It was a scam from top to bottom. It litteraly hid good promo codes to promote its own crappier codes.

[@ChristopherYeeMon]

These fiascos prove that these influencers and content creators should call for more ad regulation. The influencers, except the biggest ones, lack the resources to vet these advertisers adequately. They need help. Otherwise these embarassing situations will keep popping up, making youtubers and tiktokers look like jackasses in perpetuity. Just recently in the PC hardware space, we had NZXT, and now greater KZbin has Honey. And we get these awkward apology-lite videos from the content creators

[@m4nt1c0r3s]

NZXT is not the same case, these youtubers could have gotten all that information by actually looking throught the website and weighing what the value proposition is, instead they just decided to take the money and parrot the talking points without a single critical thought, its not the same thing. Government is always slow on regulations, and do you think that a lot of these influencer would just wait around when money are on the table, a lot of them already promote obvious placebos and straight up scams?

[@iTrishaLyn]

To be fair I think more people on the back end who are managing these sponsorships for influencers should educate themselves on other marketing methods. If they had understood affiliate marketing more they’d have likely known that this is what Honey, Retail Me Not, Rakuten, etc have been doing for decades.

[@TheCatherineCC]

Everything they peddle is either an outright scam or they get a kick back. Can't trust any of it.

[@PartOfTheGame]

Nah, you can't be upset and still say "It works" at the same time. Pick a lane buddy. You either stop using it because it's literally illegal, or you don't care because it doesn't matter to you.

[@DjShinnosuke]

The entire video a resume of MegaLag, At the end nothing come from Austin about if he feel bad to promoted this extension and let people feel scam or an Apology

[@jamess7315]

It’s surprising that fans have any sympathy for influencers in this situation. Too many influencers fail to do even the bare minimum of due diligence when recommending products or investments. Then, when their fans lose money, they offer nothing more than a half-hearted apology and move on without accountability. That’s why this particular case is so satisfying - for once, it’s the influencers themselves who end up being short-changed due to their lack of diligence. It’s poetic justice at its finest. Well played, Honey!

[@embiggenedbadger4297]

1:18 - Excuse me? It does NOT work. That is incorrect. "[I]t does what it advertises" is absolutely not true. The entire premise of Honey is not just that it saves money; instead, Honey claims it will automatically find you the BEST discounts and apply those, when in reality, it searches a pre-screened, pre-approved list of promotional codes that are intentionally designed to EXCLUDE discount codes with the highest potential savings. That is 100% FALSE advertising! [Edit] 6:19 - ... and here is where you make all the same points that I mentioned above. This should have been in the video rather than "it does what it advertises."

[@kaiperdaens7670]

even worse would have been if they used the better codes backend and you only got the honey one which made you pay more and give them the rest of the price for example: there is a 20% and 5% code and they only show you the 5% one and only show you that price but they use the 20% code so that there is a 15% difference which they would claim

[@Djfjtidkxkftje]

everyone on youtube doing damage control

[@turbot_]

But us as the end user got discounts. The creators just didn't make money off us.

[@Suplyndmnd]

@@turbot_ Only, we didn't get the best discounts like they say we will. Watch the video again to get a full understanding of what is going on.

[@renital_4279]

@@turbot_ I get that you care only about the end price and dont care about money the affiliates make as long as you get to save, but please understand that you are NOT actually saving money because they are intentionally HIDING better coupons from you that you could easily find in 1 google search, that's the biggest problem with honey

[@NymphieJP]

I wouldn’t say damage control. Everyone is realising this, even creators!

[@FcoEnriquePerez]

He dares to say "it works, it does what they say" while it doesn't do what they say!! lol Literally the video explains it.

[@UToobSteak]

Honey always seemed too close to malware to me, so never used it

[@onelapvideo]

KZbinrs: eagerly take money to blindly promote a sh*t product Also KZbinrs: later complain that the sh*t product is a sh*t product. But only because it negatively affects them.

[@dylancooper4201]

To be fair…. Almost all KZbinr pushed products and services are just a scam. Honey, better help, raid, 99% of their pushed product lines…. Etc

[@ChaoticD3sTroYeR]

Honey was stealing a lot of of honey from others, sucks that they had the cojones to do some bull like this.

[@Ok-kf8xg]

Cojones? Destroyer in the username? Are you puertorrican? 🇵🇷

[@Asmodis4]

not honey, PAYPAL. i suggest a banking license for paypal and i bet you, the next day paypal will be history. if people are coming to look into paypals books, it WILL be a mess.

[@StevenMTilleyBRLA]

The influencers who promote Honey and got PAID are not "victims"... the affiliate marketers who did not promote Honey, did not use Honey, and had sing NO agreement with Honey are the victims!!!!!!

[@AussieTVMusic]

I picked Honey as a scam yrs ago. And you supposed to be a Tech guy? I supposed the cash blinded your judgement.

[@chasejackson7248]

He's doesn't really know what he is talking about.

[@MegaLag]

Appreciate you addressing this Austin. Much respect.

[@danbooke2001]

How KZbinrs make their money isn't my problem.

[@TheFPSPower]

I'd be interested to know if the Microsoft Edge native coupon thing also does this, it sometimes recommends available coupons or even just telling you "there's a cheaper seller on Amazon". Granted it's not as intrusive as Honey but I'm guessing it has a similar concept.

[@novanightmare6289]

Of course it does. Do you think it's going to give you discounts for free? Microsoft wants money, they want users, they cloned the concept. Users save and are relatively happy - so they're more likely to continue using edge, and Microsoft makes some of that money along with the data garnered by their users shopping habits.

[@JZTechEngineering]

@@novanightmare6289 do you have evidence beyond "company wants money"

[@Freestyle80]

@@novanightmare6289here we have another guy throwing out baseless rumors to try and farm internet points

[@fatrobin72]

I tried honey for a week years ago. Saved a total of £0.00 and uninstalled it.

[@viro_]

If what has been revealed is true, Honey (from PayPal) could be in serious trouble, especially in Europe. Manipulating cookies to hijack affiliate commissions might be seen as a violation of fair competition laws or even as fraud. In the EU, such actions could breach GDPR (e.g., modifying user data without consent) and consumer protection regulations. This issue should definitely be investigated by the relevant authorities, like the European Commission-EU laws are strict on such practices, and GDPR fines can be massive. Of course, PayPal is a huge company with a strong legal team, but that doesn’t make them untouchable. Just look at the cases the EU has pursued against Google or Amazon. If these allegations turn out to be true, this could blow up big time. 👀

[@TashJansson]

I hope they get to at least investigate them for this! If these allegations are true, there's so many things that are potnetially legal trouble for them! From false adverising to poaching affiliate revenue to shady data manipulation practices. Although.... I'm also thinking, browser extensions do disclose right away that/if they require access to read AND write pages; not sure how the EU law will tackle the extent or rather the consequences of that reading/writing. It's kind of sad that honey was backed up by paypal, a more or less reliable company that many of us considered trustworthy when talking about keeping our money and our data safe.

[@nlmaster9811]

The fact that someone as untrustworthy as Austin thinks he has the moral high ground to make a video like this is disgusting.

[@chikachyk2911]

Plausible deniability in action:

[@nerys71]

5.6m subs YOUR DUTY BOUND to talk about it morally and ethically. they probably only stole a few thousands from me over the years but that's A LOT to me !!

[@NachoDLF]

Stopped watching at 1:30, you are linking MegaLag's video but it seems you haven't fully watch it. It feels like a rushed response.

[@gundamzeta3447]

4:38 it’s all good you saying that but what if I don’t have a sponsor with honey thus not agreeing to this transaction but I have a lot of affiliate links then why should honey take my cut in that situation as I’ve had no compensation from sponsor like in your example. This agreement only works if you work with honey which a lot of guys I watch don’t but do have affiliate links.

[@jeremytine]

influencer shills got backstabbed, I have no sympathy

[@RUSHx51]

As if you care about honey. All you thought was “ooo honeys in hot water, boy can I make a video about this”

[@itsPikachu]

Jimmy Donaldson has a lot to explain

[@irishlad1367]

Bro are you listening? It scams youtubers more than the consumers

[@StellarJayEnthusiast]

he doesn't care, in his opinion screw other creators and their communities.

[@DevilboyScooby]

Yes, I'm sure this is the biggest scandal he's involved in at the moment...

[@VegetableOnWheels]

@irishlad1367 he's still a scammer himself

[@HearMeLearn]

@irishlad1367 it scams both, you think you're getting a deal but a lot of the time there's a significantly better deal that they're not telling you about

[@Arkid77777]

Honey has never worked for me once

[@oliverstemp9132]

Me neither

[@Ptera_xd]

Same. Literally 0% success rate and one had it installed for well over 2 years

[@siennahartle9069]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t the stolen affiliate links work for creators who aren’t even partners? Like if someone has honey and clicks an affiliate link from a creator who never partnered with them and uses Honey wouldn’t it steal the commission still? Or does it only do it to the person who recommended honey to that user?

[@FloreyXE]

It works for all affiliate links yes

[@siennahartle9069]

@@FloreyXE That’s so messed up

[@jay_te3]

Tried Honey couple time and no code ever work. Disabled that extension with quickness. Scam likely.

[@fuzzylittlespider]

I used Honey a few times and it didn’t save me a lot of money. I ether got nothing or only $2 of my purchase. I was so mad that I got rid of it.

[@58tp58]

cant imagine how much money y'all lost to earn a bit of money from a sponsor

[@StellarJayEnthusiast]

Think of how much money Jimmy and Linus cost Austin over the years.

[@demetriussandoval2476]

this feels like a bad and quickly thrown together youtube apology to cover his own ass

[@josephcomings]

Only without the apology part.....

[@LordBeef]

@@josephcomings This!! He didn’t take any responsibility or acknowledge any wrongdoing, even though he says he knew that it took the affiliate commission. He didn’t rely on that income so he didn’t care.

[@lloxz_]

A lesson for us? Okay i will keep using honey with your links.

[@gardenpop]

If people want to understand this, they need to watch the original video. This scam hurt businesses, influences, and consumers. I try to stay away from consumer ads like honey and incogni generally.

[@Purgatory73]

Good on you Austin for speaking about it!