Is This the Most Audacious Scam EVER?

[@olpaint71]

I always assumed the Honey extension was simply a data miner and ignored the advertisements. The reality is so much more devious.

[@HawksDiesel]

What extension isn't data mining?!

[@SueC]

@@HawksDieselwhich is why I rarely use extensions.

[@swimskill8762]

Me too but I am sure they are data mining as well

[@stargateproductions]

I've had Honey since 2017. Last August was the first time I saved money with it. I save 10 bucks. It's not worth it. Never was and now it's a scam on top of that.

[@drooplug]

That's what I figured too. I used it shortly when it first came out. Did not see any value unit so I stopped. Man, this is devious.

[@codyrhodes1344]

I used a Kamikoto knife to cut up my certificate from Established Titles, both of which I purchased with Honey. I might have to talk about this with my BetterHelp therapist.

[@marlene56-143]

You are a Hero of American Consumerism!

[@benvandermerwe4934]

😂⚡👏🏻🥃🇿🇦

[@dalfifran7572]

Oh damn..... 🤣

[@thebigdog2295]

😅😂🤣

[@sharihazlett3774]

😂😂👍😊

[@varukasalt]

Can't wait to get my 32 cent virtual gift card from the class action.

[@GrandRezero]

I don't think the users of Honey are the class here.. the service poached the commissions. For example, if Honey was a car dealership employee who kept taking credit for sales by sneaking their employee number in the transaction. The customer buying the car isn't the person affected.

[@newshodgepodge6329]

Just don't forget to "accept" the terms and conditions that come with it.

[@Iden_in_the_Rain]

@@GrandRezero straight up idk how what honey is doing isn’t classified as theft. It has to be illegal to take commission money from employees/contracted employees

[@jforce321]

​@@GrandRezeroThe customer is also a victim here but yes not in regards to the commission. It's more to do for us with the fact that they cheated us out of better deals that were actually out there by allowing the merchant to hide certain coupons and not showing us coupons that the community found.

[@scriptles]

I joined the Facebook/Meta one and still havent gotten anything years later lol... with how the country is going you should be worried they make you pay more... because this world is jacked the f up on stupidity and greed

[@mikelakner5622]

When I was in the Navy, I never saw "Hello Honey" end well.

[@spvillano]

There is only one time it's ended well, when I was at the store and was picking up a jar of honey for a reasonable price.

[@clydeknox8887]

I can say the same thing about the Army.

[@raygunsforronnie847]

It involves penicillin.

[@condorboss3339]

Made me laugh.

[@grahamstretch6863]

@@raygunsforronnie847 😂😂

[@TheCaptainmojo1973]

Scammers be getting better at scamming. Pretty soon the government may have some real competition. 😂

[@holdmybeer123]

@@TheCaptainmojo1973 Government doesn't like competition it doesn't approve. That is why we have the FTC and the DOJ.

[@AnnEstep-d2s]

Great comment!

[@bartsanders1553]

They donxt allow competition. See Bernie Madhoff

[@xlerb2286]

Nah, they just take a page from other organized crime operations and demand a piece of the action. Otherwise known as taxes or political campaign donations depending on who's pocket it's going into.

[@ecom2933]

WAIT!!! Trump will fix it.

[@kittensnark]

The creator of the adblocker Pie is also the creator of Honey, which makes Pie seem even more suspicious than it already did.

[@NorthcoastPatty]

I've been bombarded with "Pie" ads.

[@WDGFE]

Upper Echelon posted a video about PIE a day ago. Search for: Exposing the "PIE" Influencer Disaster - (Same Developers as HONEY)

[@Wolfie713]

Avoid March 14th of each year, it's a scam!

[@efflux89]

@@NorthcoastPatty Brave or Firefox browser + uBlock Origin extension + SponsorBlock extension. You'll never see those ads again.

[@Flightcontrol96]

An ad blocker with such a seemingly high advertisement budget is extremely suspicious to me.

[@holdmybeer123]

I installed honey twice before a major purchase, saw that it did not give me any deals and both times uninstalled it after it failed me (did not deliver me a discount). I also did not go forward with the purchase. Proud to have never made honey a cent.

[@justanoman6497]

If you make any purchase from those two website within the next month, they'd get a commission still (unless overriden by a different referral link). It was briefly mentioned in that video that's how long the affliate cookies last.

[@MReginaldGoldstein77]

I have a Capital One card. I logged into my account one day and it asked if I wanted to try Capital One Shopping. I installed it and then forgot about it. Fairly often it will find coupon codes and apply them and then I remember “oh yeah, I installed that once”. Pretty cool. I’ve never considered Honey because with the exception of Dollar Shave Club, I’ve never had good luck with companies that aggressively buy an insane amount of ads on every KZbin video and podcast on the planet.

[@FurryNutz740iL]

@@justanoman6497delete the cookies and use a different browser!

[@janetbaker645]

I tried Honey but it never gave me anything and I deleted it…

[@agalerex]

I briefly tried honey but couldn't get it's 'see deals' button to work. Clicking it did nothing. Eventually I figured out an addon called "noscript" was somehow preventing that button from working, and now I know why: noscript was blocking honey's attempt at changing the affiliate link to their own. In other words, noscript was preventing honey from scamming me.

[@zmarko]

Are there NO corporate laws anymore? All these corporations keep getting exposed doing extremely heinous shit, and nothing EVER happens to them.

[@alaskansummertime]

No.

[@logansmall5148]

Yeah it's almost like the idiotic populace keeps electing corporate shills that do nothing for the people but bend over backwards to let corporations and billionaires rob us all.

[@iammaxhailme]

haven't been since deregulation in the 80s and 90s

[@Daemon333x]

The corpos own the government, why would anything ever happen to them?

[@scottelder3141]

Accountability is dead, for everything... Business, personal, government...

[@aussiebloke609]

Let the lawsuits begin. GENTLEMEN, START YOUR LAWYERS! 🏁

[@macforme]

Spot on..... and I love the smell of Lawsuits in the Morning.

[@Wolfie713]

Lawyers around the nation (that specialize in this sort of thing) are celebrating Christmas a day early this year.

[@brentfarvors192]

Guarantee the forensic accountants are searching records as I type this...🤣

[@GrnEyez64]

This is both a civil and a criminal matter.

[@jayrenner211]

Sir, this is not a website for Scotty Kilmer ! :)

[@TheRcSaylors]

One of our viewers sent us your video because we’ve been talking about this in our videos recently. I’m so glad to hear someone talking about this because it has stollen THOUSANDS (I’m sure more) from our channel and our family!! It sickens us so much. Bring more awareness to this everyone!! 🙏💯⚓️

[@poil27]

just sub to your chanel

[@Relkond]

Landing in the news cycle over the holiday? Gunna give the story legs.

[@sargemarine3709]

Good to see you here ! LOL

[@I_Am_Your_Problem]

@TheRcSaylors GTFO. There are no less than 40 videos on the subject this week.

[@D-B-Cooper]

PayPal been stealing money for years.

[@POOKISTAN]

Can you elaborate on this? I have never heard this and if it is true I'd like to know more...

[@commodoresixfour7478]

Pay pal is NOT FDIC insured, for starters

[@BlackJesus8463]

@@commodoresixfour7478 insurance is a scam.

[@jeromethiel4323]

I used to have paypal back at the beginning, since it was a way to pay on E-bay. I had it linked to a credit card, so i could use the credit card protections to protect myself. Back in the day, paypal decided that to use their service, you HAD to tie a bank account to it. No exceptions. Since there is no reason to do that unless you are trying to do shady crap, and since i didn't want to open another bank account just for paypal, haven't used them since. Plus, as a seller, paypal is the worst payment service you can get. Once my company had the ability to ditch paypal, we did, and never looked back.

[@williamfields7287]

I have canceled purchases mid stream when I found out that payment was going through paypal. They want to take a cut of everything.

[@TheAbbyTwirls]

Thank you. This has been something we have noticed for the past 15 months. To the point where we tell people to turn off the extension before clicking our link. It’s sick. They are stealing from families.

[@joelbosso1331]

I said this on a different video on the same subject: The only reason the Honey scam has been exposed is because the influencers didn't get their full cut. If it was just the audience getting ripped off, we'd still be ignorant of Honey's drawbacks. I'm skeptical of nearly all KZbin sponsorship products.

[@workingguy-OU812]

Would e nice for someone to make a video covering all the influencers who promoted this scam. I have stopped watching a number of KZbin channels over the proven scams they promoted; it is their duty to fully research whatever they recommend.

[@EmpressOfExile206]

That part‼️👏

[@MadocComadrin]

The ones that are actually for physical goods are usually fine. You can at least find honest testimonials about their quality if you dig a bit. E.g. my experience with Trade Coffee does send you decent coffee even if the bags are a bit smaller for the price point than I'd like. It's an option if you don't have a specially coffee roaster nearby. Services are harder to judge, and for the ones that offer a free service---scam or not---the saying "if you're not paying, you're the product" usually applies.

[@doublepinger]

Mr. Beast should be in prison, on multiple counts. Instead in Capitalism Country, he gets his own series.

[@zazuch]

@@workingguy-OU812 not all youtubers would be aware of this. Even more so with how it would do it as far as the affiliate scamming it does. Because unless you have an idea it is doing this you wouldn't even look for it. They got scammed from it as well they are just as much a victim as anyone else is.

[@dr_workaholic]

I always assumed honey's scam was just stealing more intimate data from users, but this is just fraud.

[@georgebooth2505]

We all should go use it, so we get a cut of the class action... 🤔🤣

[@darkforcesjedi]

It's doing that too

[@demonvictim]

I thought that they made money by taking the difference between 2 coupons so they will offer you a 20% discount but in actuality the discount is 30% and they pocket the in-between prices

[@KayJay940]

Its not fraud. Maybe walking a fine line but I doubt any court would find it so. Both sides are trying to scam them consumer to pay more tha item is worth and take a cut. So whats the basis of that case... hey you scooped it before I could. Thats kind of like calling the cops on yoir dealer because the baggie was a gram short. What about the customer whos getting scooped either way, thats the real crime.

[@chriswarr641]

@@KayJay940 They are saying that they do one thing while actually doing something completely different that harms the people promoting the service and the people using it. that is fraud.

[@kurtwinter4422]

Honeypot. Hidden in plain sight

[@maxruggiero4338]

It’s in the name🤯

[@Relkond]

Watch out for the creators latest product, Pie.

[@oldmanhare]

This story should be way bigger. I cannot imagine how much money they have hijacked!

[@HawksDiesel]

Millions if not more

[@Joe-xq3zu]

I would honestly be shocked if the number is less than 10 billion.

[@guccipucci69420]

​@@HawksDieselit would be naive to think it's only millions, it's definitely billions

[@laysdong]

This is as big as the story is going to get. While scummy everything they did was legal and encouraged

[@kaseyboles30]

It's getting there fast. I've seen multiple different kinds of you-tubers cover it. The original guy, Asmongold, Vtubers, tech-tubers. And now a law-tuber. You've just seen the detonator go off, the rest is comming.

[@blu_indi9333]

I am curious if Devin at Legal Eagle will file a lawsuit. I watched MegaLabs video. It's a must watch. Everything on the internet should be viewed through skeptical eyes, minds.

[@jamesodell3064]

The video about Honey has over 7 million views so this is already blowing up. One thing the class action lawyers will love is that Honey is owned by PayPal and PayPal has very deep pockets.

[@pinkfreud62]

Yea, I closed my PayPal a couple years ago when they threatened to fine $2,500 for what they could call misinformation.

[@tonymouannes]

PayPal's business model was always to insert themselves in transaction where they're not really needed.

[@laysdong]

They didn't do anything illegal...

[@ZboeC5]

@@pinkfreud62 I did the exact same thing but they have been scummy for a long time but before it was always in the "background" so to speak. Once they came out as open supporters of that nonsense I closed my account with them and now I'm even more glad that I did. I didn't even know Paypal bought honey but the whole thing was shady from the start.

[@dbyrne231]

@@laysdong I'm not sure that's true. It sounds like they could have misrepresented benefits to the consumer, especially for the paid service. Even if they didn't break the law, they still may be sued.

[@RefreshingShamrock]

I intentionally make it a point to not buy anything that KZbin advertises or from a sponsor. I hate ads that much.

[@gorak9000]

firefox + ubo + sponsorblock = life free from annoyance and it saves time too by not watching ads or sponsor segments

[@darcyedmonds8848]

Same. 😁❤

[@arribaficationwineho32]

Same. Never ever

[@oneChanelCherie]

Same.

[@efflux89]

@@gorak9000 For the normies: ubo = uBlock Origin

[@donalddepew9605]

I cringe when I see or hear the word “Influencer”. Causes me to avoid them like the plague. Just like politicians you have to follow the money and find out what’s in it for them. Of course there are people out there who do offer good advice, but because someone else says to do something because they do it, doesn’t mean you should. I’ve never thought of you as an influencer Steve, just a guy on KZbin that offers good information and helps keeps me aware of nefarious things such as this one. Have a wonderful Christmas all of you.

[@danielboone8435]

I have an alternative word I use for the president.

[@annpeerkat2020]

influencers got scammed by the product they pushed.... perfect!

[@MeRiaNevaMynd]

Thank you! Merry Happy Christmas to you too! 🕯🎄🕯

[@Jeremiah-fuqs]

It ain't that deep. Company paid for an ad. The KZbinr ran their ad. Go put your tin foil hat away

[@oxwah]

I tried Honey a couple times and never found any working coupons. I'm not surprised it was a scam.

[@michaelgwfrogwelge]

Ditto...

[@gordon861]

Same here, never found any working links to deleted it. I now use Quidco, which might be UK only, they just work with particular sites. But if they are stealing the links from others then Quidco and the buyer probably have a legal claim against Honey because neither of them will get the promised cash back.

[@stargateproductions]

I've had Honey since 2017, I have saved money once and it was this summer on a AC unit. I saved 10 bucks on a 600 dollar purchase. It's not worth it :(

[@ghostofdre]

A thousand class action lawyers all cried out as they felt a disturbance.

[@wilsonl9397]

I just watched this yesterday! Great investigation work. Thanks for talking about it

[@Offensively-normal]

Sounds to me like those folks over at honey. Are going to find themselves in a sticky situation.

[@wessltov]

I doubt they stuck around for sweet justice

[@Novastar.SaberCombat]

No consequences will befall anyone who is rich, powerful, influential, and corporately connected. If Chump hasn't been held responsible for decades of crimes, there's NO chance that some silly coupon company cartel will face "justice", lmao.

[@CAPSLOCKPUNDIT]

The news is certain to generate a lot of buzz.

[@richardward8578]

Had to be said.

[@logansmall5148]

Considering Elon Musk and PayPal are heavily intertwined, my bet is not only will nothing be done, but the corruption in government will pass legislation protecting it from consequences.

[@terripebsworth9623]

That's called FRAUD. Paypal is a disaster anyway. I would never use even their main app.

[@kimfleury]

Around 2018 I went to set up an account because I knew I hadn't used it since around 2003. It wouldn't let me create an account because it said my email was already associated with an account. Yet when I tried to get my log in credentials it denied me. I tried to use other email addresses but the same thing came up with every one of them. This year I found out that my original account is associated with an email address that I no longer have access to. I only happened to find out because I was cleaning up stored passwords, which I don't remember being a thing in 2003, but maybe my memory is foggy on that. Anyway, on the one hand I'm glad I can't use PayPal, but on the other hand I wonder who's using all my email addresses to engage in illegal activity? I had tried to find a way to contact PayPal to clean it up for that reason, but there's no way to contact them, and that's a massively large red flag.

[@workingguy-OU812]

meh, I’ve always liked PayPal. It just works.

[@logansmall5148]

Yes, a lot of things Elon Musk has his tentacles in reek of fraud.

[@DefinitelyNotRin]

Unfortunately some companies solely use PayPal to pay you. In times like that we're forced into it.

[@sdhlaw1]

I saw the same video the same time (yesterday) that you did. And as a lawyer for the past 46 years, the though I had right after the "wow, this is a HUGE scheme", was that at the very least Honey (e.g., Pay Pal), is seriously guilty of widespread false advertising. And probably the damages from their scheme has been a cost of billions of dollars, at least probably most of their gross revenues since it began what are actually several different schemes to divert commissions from influencers to itself and to obtain those commissions by deceiving consumers about the value of the discounts that they "find." You are right. This is going to blow up, BIG TIME! It will be interesting to follow this for the next decade of my life.

[@eightysea3780]

It's not only poaching affiliate commissions, it's setting itself up for affiliate commissions whether you got there from an affiliate link or not. Basically giving itself commissions for every purchase you make when you're using the coupon app.

[@methonyHolmes-e8p]

Sounds like a virus

[@joshcarter-com]

Yep, and it’s shocking that sellers didn’t blow the whistle on this years ago. Surely they noticed huge portions of their affiliate payments going to Honey.

[@zazuch]

Some of them benefited by partnering with honey and giving them an affiliate link. By partnering they can go hey honey only limit coupons to 5% or 10% for example. So even if there was a 30% off that existed honey would not use it. So some of the retailers were in on it profiting off what it did.

[@GeorgeVCohea]

Affiliate commissions are bogus in any case and lack transparency. Buyers are not told who, if anyone gets these, and the concept is essentially pointless at this point and needs to be eliminated going forward. No one has any reason to care and should not, considering the commission actually costs everyone more money than necessary in the long term.

[@amicaaranearum]

And it’s also not showing you the best coupons if the store has an agreement with Honey to limit the discounts shown to users.

[@101arg101]

Felony computer fraud, 100% undoubtedly. Tampering with my digital payments without me knowing? This must result in arrests.

[@laysdong]

100% nothing illegal happened here. This is the society we built. You're on some good crack cocaine if you think there will be arrests.

[@logansmall5148]

Hah! The injustice department won't do anything, this was done by big money interests, including Elon Musk who owns the incoming administration.

[@ItsEverythingElse]

It didn't cost YOU anything.

[@ForumArcade]

Thank you for covering this story. I was curious if there was any potential for civil litigation from this case.

[@QALibrary]

No becuse the software worked as intended and they were fully open to what it was doing

[@JAT985]

@@QALibraryits pretty blatant fraud. Affiliate links are part of an arrangement between influencers and companies. Honey rewriting the affiliate cookies to give themselves the money for the work done by the influencers is literally fraud.

[@redneckcoder]

@@QALibrary Where were they fully open about what they were doing? Terms of Service? Because all their TOS says about it is "PayPal does not charge fees to you for its Service. We try and locate the best publicly available discounts and coupons, track product pricing, and negotiate exclusive offers that may be better than other publicly available deals. We make money to sustain the Service when you purchase or engage with these offers. While we try and find you the best available discounts and coupons, and to identify low prices, we may not always find you the best deal. PayPal is not responsible for any missed savings or rewards opportunities." It says nothing about swiping referrals from creators who you intentionally chose to support, nor does it include that they intentionally DON'T offer you the best deals. They use weasel language to obfuscate intentional acts as "incidental" omissions they are not liable for. Yes there will be lawsuits, because you can't disclaim intentional acts you don't disclose.

[@justanoman6497]

The other affliates might have a decent case in terms of interference with business relation or whatever that's called. Consumers.... a lot harder. Because, what are the damages? There is none as far as the affliate stealing goes. As for the not the best coupon bit... That is not a realistic expectation even if they actually tried. Which in turn means the advertisement is puffery to begin with and makes it difficult to sue for false advertisement. I won't say there is no case but this is a lot more complicated and difficult than it might first appear. It certainly is fraud in reality, but as far as legal standard goes... it's hard to establish what was actually promised (and fraud is the gap between what is promised and what is provided).

[@FastEddy1959]

First, the expression you’re looking for is (I believe) “tortuous interference”. Second, the consumer has a strong claim, since the software deliberately did the opposite of what it advertised it would do.

[@kathleenkrug-byle1199]

-A PayPal app that makes money for itself, what a surprise. -Also the entire data brokers industry needs to be illegal or at least more regulated.

[@efflux89]

For the sake of fairness, the Honey app was an established start up generating revenue for 8 years before it was bought out by PayPal.

[@UserLaq010]

Glad you picked this up. Next you should do a video on Flock license plate readers. Just found out my small county alone (65000 population) is paying $100k a year for 38 dedicated cameras to surveil us and upload all our movements to the Flock nationwide database. Who boast to cover 70% of the United States population at this point. Its simular in a lot of ways, a sketchy startup misleading everyone and making an absolute killing doing it.

[@jeffreycole2816]

Time for a DOJ investigation...

[@MrDee001]

This was absolutely malicious. Nigerian princes everywhere are so proud of Honey. 😳

[@cweaver4080]

This scam has been around for over 40 years. In 1980, AC/DC asked "what do you do for money honey?"

[@aspencer2328]

I have never used Honey; nor PayPal, and now that I've seen that in-depth video about their sneaky scam, I'll be sure not to touch 'em with a ten foot polecat! Merry holidays Steve Lehto and all.

[@Verifiedbyme]

Diabolical, insidious, cunning, creative, ingenious Awe inspiring and yes, audacious

[@thebenc1537]

Steve, the same people are doing a similar scam called Pie. "You get paid if you see ads" - I am sure you saw the advertisements they have online. It's the same people doing the same scam with a differnet face.

[@pigletshut]

Just like AllAdvantage and Gotoworld of years bygone. What can possibly go wrong?

[@kentogletree9509]

Honey was created by the same people that created Pie.

[@richarddow8967]

Love that you went outside the box on this. Legacy media is dropping the ball too often these days. Important story and great awareness, TY!

[@mch2359]

I have a feeling Microsoft is doing the same thing with their "shopping" thing that looks for the "best" price.

[@maxsmodels]

Greed....still one of the most powerful motivators for creation for both good and bad.

[@bsimmons00]

Watched that video yesterday. Mind blowing. I always knew these coupon/cashback extensions were making money somehow but never knew it was so nefarious. Uninstalled Honey (though it has been pretty worthless for quite a while) immediately...

[@TcMhMuSiC]

I'm addicted to this channel. DAMN YOU STEVE!!! Merry Xmas dude

[@martymart42]

8:04 Honey is going to say there was a glitch. That we are sorry for the inconvenience we fixed the problem.

[@walrusdestruction6845]

Nope he reached out to them and they confirmed that is what it does

[@oneChanelCherie]

lol so glad you’re covering this. CoffeeZilla and other KZbin channels have been saying this for months that it’s a scam. Influencers are pretty bad nowadays with not researching their sponsors.

[@keepleft]

7:25 even if there TOS that somehow disclosed this, the way it works, it scams people who have never seen or agreed to the TOS. If I'm a non-homey promoter, and you use my link, my commish gets poached simply by YOU having Honey. I've never signed the TOS, I'm just out here promoting my links.

[@matthewlwood]

This won't just flip affiliate links from the influencers supporting Honey. Once the extension is installed in users' browsers, this can flip affiliate links from *_everyone._* This can interfere with the business of people that have nothing to do with Honey.

[@redneckcoder]

Any time you can't see how a company is making money - know its scamming someone somewhere.

[@scottmcshannon6821]

nobody noticed that the more they promoted honey the less they made? honey hiding the best coupons had to blow up in their faces right away. honey would have been much better off presenting customers with good coupons, or didnt they know how to find the best coupons.

[@MannyBrum]

A lot of KZbinrs don't make consistent revenue from affiliate links. The exception is KZbinrs who review products, like Linus Tech Tips, and they noticed. If you're only making 0.5% of your revenue from affiliate links, you're probably not going to notice if it drops to 0.25%. In most cases people probably made more from the sponsorship than they did from the affiliate links. That's likely why it was so widespread.

[@ZboeC5]

Some did notice, if you watch the Megalag video you'll see.

[@ThinkTankEntertainment]

Scamming seems to be the new “customer service” from these corporations. SMH

[@cesiba1]

It's always been. This is the united states of corporate America after all. The SC has ruled corporations people. Police was first introduced to protect the property and interests of businesses. If I take your car it's theft. If a business takes your car, legally or ILLEGALLY its a CIVIL matter. Cops routinely enforce with extreme violence anything Walmart deems in their best interests. We elected a corporate criminal as our president. Not surprised by any of this

[@briancason6579]

06:18 it's even more sinister than that! A point Megalag (unfortunately) doesn't really explain all that clearly is that the extension will attempt to poach the affiliate link in EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION on any platform, regardless of the creator who promoted the extension! That is, for example, when a viewer starts using Honey after any old Joe Schmoe on KZbin promoted it, the program will poach the affiliate links from ANY creator on ANY shopping platform, NOT just those links provided by the creator who promoted it. Straight up diabolical. And should come as no surprise to anyone since it's owned by FRIGGIN PAYPAL!!! What else did you expect? Of course it's a scam, or at the very least entirely exploitative. That's PayPal for you! Personally, for years I have done absolutely everything I can to avoid ever using anything even remotely associated with PayPal.

[@altyrrell3088]

I'm with you on PayPal. On the rare occasion that a company only uses them for payments, the company loses my business.

[@OhioCarl]

The geniuses here are the Honey developers that sold itself to Paypal for 4 billion. I'm dropping paypal now just so that paypal loses twice.

[@SuperS05]

That'll be thrice. The class action is going to be big.

[@logansmall5148]

​​@@SuperS05No it won't, PayPal won't suffer any consequences since the incoming administration is bought and paid for by Elon Musk, and they will make sure his bottom line won't be affected.

[@edwinhryzan9030]

The disturbing part of this is deleting and changing cookies.

[@rcwessel]

Not surprised. Long time ago I found better deals after Honey said their deal was best

[@RiverCat999]

Thanks, Steve This is why I watch your channel. Thanks for all you do on your channel and Happy Holidays

[@bobcousins4810]

I guess that internet creators are ripe for scammers because they are basically business newbies without a formal corporate structure, which would have business managers and legal depts wise to this sort of dodginess. Struggling creators are happy to receive any type of sponsorship which helps them out, so end up promoting very sketchy things like Highland Titles, and many others. The sponsored ad-reads appear to be unregulated and creators can say anything. They often say things like "I personally use this product and its a game changer", but then you see the sponsored ad-read on another channel, and they use the exact same script. There probably are creators who genuinely use the product and sought sponsorship, but unfortunately I can't believe any of them when they make personal recommendations.

[@TechGorilla1987]

@2:50 - you are the only YT person that I have ever bought a product because of. I got Rockrooster boots and couldn't be happier.

[@DustinEvans1966]

Ha ha I suspected you would say honey before you even said it.

[@drewrosch43]

Merry Christmas to you and your family. I appreciate all the information you convey on your channel. Keep up the good work, look forward to what 2025 brings…. 🎄🎄🎄🎄

[@josephvarno5623]

This seems criminally actionable to me. Deceptive business practices. Wire fraud. And at felony money. Plus the class action lawsuit lawyers just sat up and said, "I feel a disturbance in the Force. As if millions of users were defrauded." So glad I was skeptical of this and passed it by.

[@logansmall5148]

Sadly since it involves Paypal Elon Musk will make sure his bought and paid for incoming administration will do nothing about it. Don't want to disturb daddy's bottom line after all.

[@mathieubordeleau150]

Honey is a scam... I have my "least surprised I can be" face on right now. Frankly it took a very long time for this thing to be exposed.

[@tompinkerton1106]

I heard about this yesterday. There's going to be one hell of a class action lawsuit. PayPal is in for for a large bill

[@logansmall5148]

Except Elon Musk is intertwined in PayPal and the incoming administration won't want to upset their puppet master and so will make this go away.

[@MarkJones-n]

Great PSA. Thank you Steve. 👍

[@davidmccleary5540]

Just remember, billionaires would never do anything to hurt the average citizen.

[@lancekirkwood7922]

😂😂😂😂

[@sharihazlett3774]

😅😅😅😅😅

[@HH-le1vi]

They weren't billionaires before PayPal bought it and they were still doing it.

[@iansabrewolfe]

Man, I KNEW there was something sketchy and off with that extension! So glad I listened to my gut and avoided it.

[@randomgeocacher]

Yeah it always had very sus vibes; how do they make money to do all the promotions if they just collect widely accessibly coupons? By scamming everyone apparently. If a deal is too good to be true it’s usually a scam.

[@SimonTekConley]

I am stoked. I didn't trust it. I couldn't understand how it was making money, so I knew I would be the item for sale, so I stayed away. I also had no idea how much the affiliate links made until today

[@justanoman6497]

The example used (VPN) was on the very high end. Given that it is a digital product with little per unit cost. For physical goods, it tend to be in the single digits. For licensed digital goods it tends to be in the teens. So they aren't stealing as much in most transactions as there aren't as much to steal. But it sure adds up.

[@SimonTekConley]

@justanoman6497 oh I get it, but beforehand I was thinking they were making cents per transaction, I didn't understand why they would promote some things so much.

[@Frankjc3rd]

I look forward to hearing that somebody ended up in handcuffs over this! 👮🏻🚓🧑🏻‍⚖️⚖️🍯💵

[@kbjerke]

Thanks, Steve!! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

[@evelynmahoney3569]

Nice to hear Steve sincerely complimenting another creator & promoting their channel.

[@RedRavenNine]

As you said, there is likely a line in the EULA that lets them do that. I'd love to see a huge crackdown on this in EULAs in general. EULAs need to be like one page long or better, like a word limit so they can't play some game with tiny pill bottle fonts. EDIT: and while we are at it also tackle Class Action lawyers so they can't take most of the spoils. Limit them to like 10% or something.

[@lwriker1304]

Should be a major case with lying to investors.

[@ronbdallas]

And there are folks that still insist that there’s no need to regulate Internet commerce…

[@markstevens1729]

I was raised in the '60s. When did people stop learning there is no free lunch? I operate online with a simple strategy: only pull, never push. I NEVER respond to something pushed my way. NEVER. If I encounter something I am interested in, I'll seek it out and pull it into my life. The research of the pull process is the filter for crap. Push is automatically blocked in my mind. Solves almost every scam, every time. More for less is a myth. A scam relies on inherent greed.

[@justskip4595]

Upper Echelon has made a video about the people who made Honey and how they have moved onto a new thing with same idea.

[@flyer617]

Scams are so common these days that it is rare to find something that is not a scam! Grew up in NY where everything has always been a hussle of some kind so it's no surprise.

[@stalbaum]

The best way to deal with scams anymore is just to disengage from as many companies as you can.

[@davidgrim5990]

The honey people are making a new extension called pie which will be far worse and will rip off creators by ad substitution

[@jameswyatt1304]

Oh Honey Pie, You are making me cra-zy Wanna shop but I'm la-zy, Won't you please go back...

[@daewooparts]

PayPal ain't no pal of mine ....it's the Hertz of online payments

[@jaerockchalk3216]

MegaLag did a hell of a job exposing this . hope he get his flowers for the hard work he did putting it together thanks for covering Steve !

[@kevinmorris2440]

Watched MegaLag's video yesterday, it's a good one.

[@k87upkid]

Literally just finished watching the exposure video. Perfect timing.

[@m.l.a.o.]

Now that's a honey-do list

[@DonFahquidmi]

More like a honey don't 😂

[@justjeff386]

And PayPal's response is "Honey follows industry rules and practices, including last-click attribution." And a bunch some other bullcrap that skips over the real issues.

[@nocturnalmayhem0]

im surprised it took so long for people to catch on lol thats pretty bold of them to switch out cookies even if it just ask you to pay with paypal or not find coupons. im willing it bet that it was right in its TOS that it did this and noone bothered to read it

[@justanoman6497]

I don't think TOS on that would do anything. Consequently, I don't know if they would bother. Thing is, as far as the consumer, who agreed to the TOS, is concerned, there is no monetary damages. We only got our agency taken away as far as which affliliate we want to support but "agency" is only ever protected by specific statue/laws against specific practices(think kidnapping and such) and not in general. So as far as this practice goes, I don't think consumers have anything to sue for due to lack of damages. It hurts other affiliates, potentially in an interference with business relation way, but TOS won't protect honey there so that's not relevant. On the other hand, the "not the best coupon" bit does hurt the consumer, who are "bind" by the TOS. Something related to that might be in the TOS as a result. And in all honesty, "we can't promise it's actually the best coupon" would actually be reasonable on its face in that it isn't magic and can't make such a guarantee. But the fact that they are actively ensuring that we don't in some cases, that might be a false advertisment case at least and might be possible to sue for. But with the promise being more of a turn of phrase than literal... I'm not sure. US have really lax advertising laws. Overall, I think the other affliates stand a decent chance in a lawsuit against honey. Consumers... I'm not sure.

[@AlienX511]

Linus tech tips found it long ago and kept quiet. And made their own honey extension to do same

[@callak_9974]

@@justanoman6497 The consumers would have to provide proof they were not presented the best coupon on an item they paid for which will be difficult since those come and go, so yeah, most are probably out of luck.

[@N20Joe]

LMAO scamming not just the customer but ALSO the promoter? That's hilarious!

[@douglastaylor43]

It's very malicious and they should be punished.

[@zafarsyed6437]

Just watched and sub'd to megalag yesterday afternoon. Nice to see that Steve is down with the most currently watched.

[@kudostothewiz2703]

Yeah. I uninstalled this years ago when I would manually check myself. Never found stuff cheaper. Mostly used for video games and food. Haha.

[@Truckinup266]

Merry Christmas Steve ❤😊

[@GWaleedKavalec]

"Gator" version 2. Nothing new under the sun.

[@pppantz]

For me the most audacious scam has to be trying to hijack Graceland.😂😂😂

[@robbieburris2333]

Bring out the wood chippers

[@akshonclip]

After what they did to Conservative retailers, I deleted my PayPal account and won’t buy anything from a vendor that doesn’t have an alternative payment method.

[@donbangert]

How is this NOT unfair trade practices, as defined by the FTC?

[@tsl7881]

As they say, those rules are not always laws...

[@cynthia7445]

Thank you for this public service announcement. I hope that people begin to research the apps they download.

[@Scootphoria]

Ben is on top of the car on far right (Steve's left)

[@altyrrell3088]

Well dang. I'll have to tell my kids. They wanted me to use Honey to help save money for our household. I had to follow my gut and my gut said no, but they'll be disappointed. Thanks Steve!

[@mako-g90]

Merry Christmas Everyone!

[@tapiolankiira1968]

Glad You took it up. This actually sounds pretty bad . So malicious, evil and greed beyond comperhension

[@mgmx2099]

Simple rule: If an "influencer" is telling you to use a product, don't use the product.

[@intrepidsoul9871]

I'm always highly skeptical and cautious about anything that is pushed at me or just shows up without asking. Geez, there are so many scammers and blatant thieves out there. Will this sort of crime ever be dealt with strictly and harshly ? Doesn't look likely any time soon.