If you guys enjoyed this video, please consider supporting me on Patreon: patreon.com/MegaLag If you have any inside information about PayPal Honey or believe you can contribute to this story, please feel free to contact me confidentially at megalagtips@proton.me
There are loads of voucher code type sites (UK) which literally never have working codes but open the site you want, I’m guessing it’s the same as this, they are just there to get you to click
Aphid tech already made a video about honey scam 3 years ago ruclips.net/video/S6zFyO6vviY/видео.htmlsi=3KlKB-ybaOeIHUwt Edit also this guy talked about honey stealing money back In 2022 ruclips.net/user/shortsh5pJdzEeJMw?si=mu1uFGEHJpQCd28x
I tried getting my dad to use it back when it was trending, but he just laughed and said, "Come back to me when you find out it's a scam."... touché papa.
Yeah, this is classified as malware. If a program does something without your consent and isn't something you'd approve of, it's mal(icious) (soft)ware!
I was honestly really surprised about that, they must not have expected it to amount to a video with tens of millions of views. Wouldn't be surprised if whatever employee freely divulged that info has now been fired lol
Similar story here, I was actually getting worse deals than what I get from mailers and I either uninstalled it or it just kind of fell off my browser.
Honestly, most of them probably believed Honey was doing what it promised, but it's true that it highlights how trusting adverts from youtubers is generally not a good idea, though sometimes you have youtubers that "promote" products but discreetly criticize the products in the advert (sometimes its not even discreet) which in turn helps raising awareness on the lies of these companies and still give remuneration to the content creator.
@@whitelight2195 youtubers will just promote anything in return for a chunk of change, to be honest. At least the vast majority, and very often for things that are insane to advertise. The sort of stuff you wouldnt even take advice from close friends about, like mental health support and legal services. Its nuts that that's even possible.
@@whitelight2195 idk, I have a tough time believing most of them just throw in the ads without properly checking what the service they promote does. I am more inclined to believe that they had a fair idea how it works, but Honey made them good enough offer to cover the lost affiliate bonuses. This would also explain how so many of them were involved - the more people youtubers promote Honey, the less profitable affiliate links become in general, so you either take Honey's offer or watch your revenue disappear over time. This way only small content creators (who aren't interesting enough for Honey and rely more heavily on affiliate links) get the L.
Same. I was watching a video and the person promoted “Pie” an ad blocker, but get paid to watch ads through them. I googled and discovered they’re connected to Honey. I remembered this video sitting in my suggestions. So beware the Pie app now being promoted by other RUclipsrs.
This goes far beyond RUclips creator - this is true journalism. Top work! I will be very interested to see how this plays out in GDPR-compliant countries. I suspect this will not only be unethical, but unlawful.
This is INSANELY predatory. Great investigation, every youtuber who promoted this should make updates to tell consumers what is actually under the hood. We’ve been sold a lie. “It’s free; it’s the best deal” -It’s not the best deal, and it’s stealing from the ppl who actually bring traffic. Can’t wait to see the rest!!!!
Markiplier was right all along LMAOOOO I remember him saying he won't accept honey sponsorships because he just thinks FREE MONEY IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE AND HE DIDN'T UNDERSTAND HOW THEY MADE MONEY FROM IT
I didn’t even know about Markiplier but I felt the same way in a general sense. I just have an aversion to browser extensions overall. Too scammy. If it’s not clear what your incentives are for providing me the extension, I assume there’s something shady going on.
PS, I already gave a £100 super thanks, but can’t find my comment associated with it so just made this new one here. I really appreciated your research!
If you used Honey, I would love your feedback in the comments section. Given the Honey controversy, what do you think of our different approach with Good People Click? Do you have suggestions or features you’d like to see?
If you are a creator, also looking for your feedback: We are primarily focused on adding value to end users (via coupon discounts) and to less fortunate people (via charitable donations). The way GPC would work, and due to the last click attribution model, we would get the affiliate commission and not the influencer since GPC would be used last on the checkout page. So I’m not sure how best to partner with creators yet. Maybe since we donate half our commission to charity, some creators will want to share GPC out of the goodness of their heart. We could track their overall impact on donations raised. The only other idea I have to make a partnership more of a win-win-win is a community shareholder model where we give them shares in the company. I’d welcome any feedback on this and any other ideas!
One of the main advantages we have over Honey is that we do not need to prioritize profits like they do. For example, they will never be able to donate such a significant portion of their revenue due to their existing shareholder base and investor pressure to increase profits. As we saw in the video, they have even gone so far as withholding coupon codes for users just to increase their profit. We don’t have investors, so this gives us much more flexibility on how we can structure and build GPC for the people.
@@GoodPeopleClick Seems like the issue was that I included a link to our blog post which got it auto-removed by YT. So I'll comment below with the main points.
@@admiralkaedenooo but Markiplier said he liked it and he was paid $3000 to say so, why would he lieeee? 🥺 Clarification: I'm talking about sponsorships in general, not Honey. People don't buy sponsored products cause they're good quality, they buy it cause Wendigoon said he liked it, and why would he lie? After all, he was paid to say it
So Honey: Steals revenue from the businesses Steals referrals from the promoters And steals data from the users as well? I'm surprised it took this long for us to hear about all of this
It's crazy that it's commonly understood that capitalists, like the owners of Honey, will literally kill investigators if they get in the way of their money-making operations.
I dont know you, just started seeing the thumbnail 2 weeks ago and thought I'd give it a watch in my leisure. I think you are an odd hero, usually stuff like that come out from within, a whistleblower but the fact that you exposed this big a scam just by taking a look at cookie that was right there is just bravo, reminds me of how often we miss stuff that are right there on the surface. You've earned my subscription even though I've never seen any other video of yours yet! Will wait for the rest of the series!
You should always read at least the permissions in terms of service. You'd spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a new Ford and in the terms it gives them permission to track, record, and sell data at an absolutely insane level. Even things like, your sexual activity and things you say inside the car. Look into it, it's insane.
Same with MrBeast, I watched an old video years ago and he was like "They use new tech to make money faster to give YOU better deals" yeah right, new tech of stealing other's money!
why would anyone in their right mind even listen to influencers or even click any link they provide, or any affiliate link for that matter when i'm not getting paid a penny to click on it? i dont trust anyone's link. it could be malicious for all i know. i go directly to the source and search. and why use honey when Rakuten has been around for years and actually pays AND sends confirmation emails with the dollar amount being deposited to your account? because some influencer said so? the same influencers that fall off of cliffs taking selfies? LOL
@@JakeSkillman In the video he details how Honey enters paid deals with the retailers to actually suppress the best coupon codes instead of what it claims to do, which is find the best coupon codes available.
@JakeSkillman Honey gives you worse coupons then you wpuld get if you searched yourself. Honey tells you something is the best deal when its not but rather they are making money because of commissions from their partners. Essentially telling you it's the best deal when you could have found a better deal paying less
Your analogy that explains how Honey is basically a predatory sales associate who hangs out at the register & hands out his own business cards was PERFECT.
yup if you didnt know, Jesus will fulfill you more than anything in this world, I speak from experience (from when i did Romans 10:9-13), he loves you and wants to be in a meaningful (not romantic) relationship with you. :) “that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Romans 10:9-13 KJV “and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.” Mark 1:15 KJV If you want proof that Jesus and the Bible are true look a documentary called “Ron Wyatt discoveries 2022” on RUclips and a RUclips channel called Expedition Bible. They both examine archeological sites and discoveries that prove the Bible, and even reference secular sources. (Just don’t convert to 7th day Adventism after watching the documentary) And lastly if you don’t know the gospel and want to be saved search up “abc’s of Salvation Teenmissions” on Google and it should be the first or second result. When you click on it read the whole thing, and do what it says and have faith in Jesus while you are doing it, do not doubt, and if it is hard for you to do what it says, ask Jesus to help you, have faith that he will, and he will. God Bless :)
It tracks with PayPal's history of being complete scumbags. They would freeze peoples' accounts and do w/e they pleased with the money for months at a time.
yeah i'm fairly sure paypal bought honey so they could use it to gather data from rival payment processors. no matter what payment method you use, if you use honey, paypal knows about that sale
The thing that gets me is that youtubers who DIDN'T partner with honey must've also been getting their affiliate commissions stolen as well. Never even associated themselves with the products but still robbed by it. Atrocious.
@@muhammadarifyap1323 people who click on affiliate links from let's say, a small content creator is ISN'T sponsored by honey, might still use the extension and therefore honey will take the commission money from the creator
@@muhammadarifyap1323 consumers who have honey will be using it on youtubers affiliate links causing them to lose the cash even if they didnt get the payout from promoting honey
There are scams from the 90's that are still being used today. Like not even changed for the digital age. Live long enough and you don't need to know if something is actually a scam, it just feels wrong.
I always found it really fishy how they advertised it all as free money and coupons while being able to pay big youtubers for the sponsorship. Like, where does their revenue come from? Now I see I was right to be skeptical all along
This feels a lot like when I got my first job as an architect, I had designed a subdivision for the company I worked for, was looking at around a $15,000 commission which would have paid off my student loans. A coworker opened the drawing at the last minute and move a wall socket over a foot, drawing was saved with his name and he got the commission. My boss told me better luck next time... I quit a day later after deleting the entire subdivision drawing set. I won the case when they took me to court, and they were ordered to pay me the commission for the work I did. And my court fees. The expression, "don't bite the hand that feeds you" comes to mind.
The fact you discovered this, and seemingly was first person to call them out is admirable. You made it so everyone is paying attention and now Legal Eagle is suing. You did a major favor to the RUclips community. You’re a real hero.
Omg that's wild. I saw this video not even 48 hours ago and it was just at 17 million. I can only image the panic the Honey execs are experiencing rn lol
My burning question for part 2 is- *Why would sellers ever pay Honey*? They know it isn't driving customers to their site. They must have known all along that it's stealing someone else's commission. Terminate the affiliate contract, and worst-case scenario the vendor pockets their own affiliate costs until Honey withers away.
@@jbutler8585 I think that might have to do with honey limiting the amount of discounts. Like the lady on the podcast said it takes the incentive of customers to search for coupon codes and offers lower discounts which is ultimately better for manufacturers.
Well of course - Honey is stealing from influencers, marketplaces and consumers, not from Google. Google is in the ad selling business - blocking ads affects their bottom line.
The irony that a "honeypot" is literally used as a distraction to divert your attention from what you were actually trying to do. The clue was in the name.
@@FluffyFractalshard PayPal is still harvesting data and selling it into the data warehouse where it is bought by the government. It's the definition of a honeypot.
@@4dotaonly True, I was blown away when I watched this video for the first time and seeing everyone reacted the same way as I did. We were naive to think a youtube sponsorship would be such a scam as this. TMNF had a cheating scandal in 2021 and everyone had a very similar reaction.
if you think about it deeply, free to use extension, saves YOU money, and it was brought by paypal for 4 billion freaking money, and it have all that money to pay for youtubers to put ad on their video, it just doesn't add up, somewhere along the way, people got to get paid, and as it usually turn out for something that's too good to be true, it was, and a scam, not much of a shocker there
There are apps with 4,5 stars that have mostly 1 and 2 star reviews. Its the same om IMDB, stuff get 1 star, yet they ignore them at gives the stuff 8 stars.
Depends on how you look at it. If we consider that they were convincing us to use the service, while repeating untruthful claims only to get some cash, I'd call it a wonderful case of poetic justice.
I have little enough sympathy for the influencer/"creator" community anyways. Like so many other things in today's life, we use a misleading word instead of calling a thing what it is. "Inaccurate" instead of Liar. "Influencer" instead of Salesman. Because that's what they are. Salesmen.
The golden rule of "stay away from anything advertised on RUclips" is still going strong. Literally every single sponsor eventually gets exposed for some really shady business practices or for being an outright scam.
*Revelation 3:20* Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. HEY THERE 🤗 JESUS IS CALLING YOU TODAY. Turn away from your sins, confess, forsake them and live the victorious life. God bless. *Revelation 22:12-14* And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
Rule of thumb: if something says it will get you free or easy money, it is a scam. Remember that money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere will always be the consumers.
Well, people publish free open source code online as a community; that which is actually free. Use as you will, Read as you will, Try at your will. Sharing coupons is not too insane of an idea, it could easily be done on a subreddit or a github repo. Where honey got money to finance itself and ads, was NOT from the coupons, it was from stealing affiliate credit. If it was not donated to the public on a public repo/forum, it is not likely free. They could totally make an open source, community contributed, Honey-like extension, where it relied entirely on user submission. This would be good, and it would be "free coupons" that people shared.
approving ads saying this is the best deal you'll find on the internet then deliberately withholding the best deal is THE DEFINITION of false advertising
@@Max-me9ol Literally we Americans owe the EU so much for inadvertently helping protect consumers more than our snail government ☠ we were having some tiny progress with finally at least having a competent person in charge of the FTC but unfortunately we're losing her in January for a guy who doesn't prioritize consumers so we're cooked again
False advertising is only a crime if someone can afford to sue, and only bad for a company if someone sues and gets more money out than the false advertising made. EU regulators are basically the only party in the west that can be that someone in both instances, unless severe health outcomes are involved.
I just redeemed over $30 in cash back from honey to paypal off 2 purchases. Honey is only good if you know how to use it properly. Coupons are usually a scam they don't work. I only go for cash back purchases when I use honey.
It used to work better because online retailers were worse about tracking their own coupon codes. It's like the old websites for finding coupons used to be pretty effective as well. You would find half off birthday coupon codes that would work all year etc. Now? Yeah they cleaned that up.
I actually got probably like $80 in cash back from offers last year. I used their "offers" for stuff I wanted to buy anyways, and got the cash back deposited back to my PayPal account as cash, so it did work. Haven't used it in months, and just uninstalled it recently because the intrusive popups got annoying. After watching the video, no chance I'm ever trying it again lol
@ he optionally chose to pay. It’s his freedom to pay rather than being force to pay for the content the good. The reason he donated 45 bucks, seems to be because the fact he offered this information for free. Perhaps he felt he deserves more money. Just like when you tip a waiter and increase the tip or decrease depending on their service.
The point of the video wasnt just that it was stealing data though, its actively stealing money everytime you use it if you use an affiliate code. That means its active right now and still making money. @Squidom_
That must be an interesting job! My local paper occasionally posts ads for a PI service in the classified section and I've always wondered what it's like day-to-day. Never had any reason to hire one but when I was a kid reading Raymond Chandler it seemed like a exciting career choice!
Honestly this is class action worthy against PayPal and anyone else falsely advertising their product. I’m so sick of the grift economy. I’m sick of being a product and a consumer bombarded by ads.
yeah, we're all exhausted by the fact that basically the only "innovation" anywhere that has happened in the past decade is just more and more advanced ways of fleecing people of their money. Unfortunately for us peons none of this is class action lawsuit material because they openly tell people who actually directly ask based on how easy the beginning of this video's investigation went. They found a legal loophole and ran with it, and in a country where laws are bought and sold with "lobbying" firms nothing actually profitable is going to get legitimately punished. if the only punishment for a crime is a fine it means it's legal for a price.
@@vanxkren5636bit silly to reply with that. Guys after stating he's sick of being a product and constantly grifted by ads...theyre clearly very aware of the thousands of corps doing this shit, he doesn't need to be told PayPal did bad before like thats new info. Guys about 90 percent though his anti Corp speedrun and he's being told of bad corps by someone just starting to play the game.
I am sick of ads everywhere. Television ads are getting wierder and wierder and youtube ads always this trash nobody needs. Manscaped = regular stuff but rebranded raid shadow legends = online casino
As he says in the beginning, if you can’t work out what the business model is then you are probably the product. Unless you actively try to make yourself anonymous, you’re being tracked and your data is being sold. May as well take some measly pennies off big corp if they’re going to advertise to you anyway. Side note, affiliate links normally don’t lead to the best deals and you should always search independently if you are working on a budget. If you want to support a creator, donate to them directly.
Scammers are the ultimate bottom-feeders of humanity, thriving on deceit and feeding off the pain of the innocent, proving that their moral void is deeper than any pit of greed or cruelty imaginable.
@MrJones-wk7kt It's almost funny how much better we all could be if they just... didn't exist. Obviously, society still has *_plenty_* of other problems, but fraudsters man...
I live how measured and restrained your response is. THIS SHIT IS CLEARLY ILLEGAL, you're a good journalist and you've demonstrated your case with concrete proof.
I was even more amazed that he made $35 on 1 VPN purchase. No wonder every RUclipsr is trying to push for VPN sales its basically a gold mine as far as affiliate payouts go.
Well in our current world VPN is necessary. Ppl rarely change their VPN service. So they get influencers incentives to promote them. They want as many of the new users as they can get
So glad i never used Honey. The pure doublespeak of their business is quite disturbing and disgusting. Thank you for the kind of investigative journalism we need but rarely seem to get these days.
Yep, and when I had ads on RUclips, Better Help was the sponsor half the time. It's as if we got collective amnesia and forgot how shady that business was
You have to be a real muppet to actually take ads seriously on this site. I'm more mad at the "content creators" than Honey. They do the exact same thing except Honey doesn't steal nearly as much of your time.
Advertising honey is not the same as better help tbf. Like the creators are being stolen from and don’t know that the audience is being stolen from aswell. Betterhelp tho just shows who likes a check simply because of the amount of bad publicity it has
This is absolutely one of the hardest hitting well made videos on RUclips and I'm super embarrassed to have promoted them and see my name on those lists. This video is about to change things for the better and I will do everything in my power to spread the word and help the cause!
The problem is that there are multiple products that influencers peddle without knowing what they are. The numerous VPN ads, for example, is particularly galling: yet another product that hoovers data from unsuspecting members of the public. But dozens of folks still promote them. Do you?
Super impressed with your research! Thank you for this, I uninstalled honey back in 2020 when I realized that the extension would never find me deals, while in some instances I was able to find the coupons myself. Glad to learn (even if 5 years later) that my instinct was correct. What you said in the beginning is so true, the key rule to this age of the internet is: if the service is free, you're probably the product.
simple rule of thumb I follow- The harder it's pushed on this platform (advertising, sponsorships, etc.), the higher likelihood that it is a scam, or at the very least, incredibly predatory. (Looking at you, Raid: Scam Legends)
I didn't like the LMG bashing, but we know they don't sue,.. still this could've been handled better,... 3rd biggest promoter that also cancled their work with them called out, but the 2 biggest not called out only shown?... that's not proper
Not only the corporate decision makers, but the developers who implemented this fraud should be held accountable - as in prison time. There needs to be real consequences for their actions.
Id rather spend $10 thanking you for all the time and energy invested in your investigation, than be thankful if honey ever did "save" me even more money. Which i never used btw.
You just gave 30% of that tip to Google. Kind of ironic how stupid some people are. Even on a video about getting ripped off, you're getting ripped off.
@@FGammer79 I see you need your hand held, but did you know this donation also gave another 30% to Apple if he used an Apple platform to make that payment? So you can simple ask the content creator how to best donate a tip that won't get 60% scammed away by greedy billionaire companies.
@@phimuskapsiwho is being defrauded? The product works exactly as advertised. Is it good? No. But what do you expect from a product whose main selling point is "free money"
This also shows how the so-called "influencers" are actually not that savvy and not worth being influenced by. Something that always transpares in their videos IMO.
Imagine you're the guy who finally sells Honey to Paypal for 4 BILLION BUCKS and now you're like: "Bruh I gotta jump on one of my 5 yachts and sail off into the sunset till this cools down... Oh naaahhh I'm not responsible anymore"
technically there is no money. there is coupon codes. they can be like a "google" for coupons. and they are paypal so one could say they are a gateway for people to start using paypal. alas the corporate bs again
This actually makes so much sense. I myself have seen a decline in affiliate link sales even with an increasing number of clicks. So disappointing. And creators have no real way of finding out how much has been stolen from us without websites giving up the information, if they even keep record of it.
Its so fulfilling seeing the product/service you were suspicious of the entire time finally being exposed for actually being bad, very good video. We need investigations like these
But cute little happy mascot coin!!! Really fucked up to see the imagery used. What a perfect microcosm of corporate scumbaggery within our daily lives.
Shady that online payments have started asking tip or change. Also missed opportunity to call this video document "The Honey Trap" 22:23 they also pouche the corporations scary that uninstalling dosent work and it can be counted as malware😰
I feel the exact same way about Pie, and it doesn't help that Pie is made by the same people who made Honey. I can't wait for stuff to come out about Pie too inevitably
Things are about to get real as the top 1% of 1% of RUclips creators are now doing reactions to this video, sending viewers to watch this video. Also, in less than 24 hours, the top Google search results for Honey have gone from all but one negative link to the complete opposite. You did good, and are almost certainly on the nice list this year.
A big thing was him pointing out the top RUclipsrs in the video. Soft handedly forced them to make a video or look complicit in the scam. Made a lot easier since many of them are victims of the scam.
I was always wondering how does a free browser extention company make money themselves if it's all free, but didn't think it would get this diabolical. Thank you for doing a great work uncovering all of this, it's beyond crazy.
I hadn't watched the video. I've used honey only as a spot check for codes then deleted right after. Maybe tried it 4 times with no success and never turf it again
The wondering how something free could make money is the reason I never downloaded it, but prior to this video I just assumed it was massive data harvesting (Chrome extensions can have scary levels of access + malware potential). This is worse
I always assumed they'd make it by gathering your data and selling it or by getting a comission. I didn't expect though that it would delete the referrals of the people who initially promoted a product to you lol.
This is why I'm so glad we live in a country with uncensored press. Honey, being owned by PayPal, could've bought off some politician and gotten this shut down. I'm also glad for this guy in particular. Thanks for doing all this research man! Good on you, and keep going!
Holy crap this is insane. I never installed Honey because the business model did not pass the sniff test for me. Like it was never clear how Honey make their money so I assumed it had to be something sketchy. This explains everything and I hope they go the way of BonziBuddy.
I just assume that the more content creators who are stumping for a product or company, the bigger a fraud that product or company will turn out to be. That caution hasn't let me down once in all these years. There is zero difference between a content creator making an ad for something and any other form of commercial. It's just another advertisement, full stop. People really need to get over this fantasy that content creator's inherently have a clue, let alone always have their best interests in mind. There is no universe where I'd let a random app hunt for coupon codes for me, let alone just because someone whose videos I enjoy was paid to sell the service to me.
I've been saying for years that there's no way data collection isn't part of their model, because there's no other way a model like this *can* make money. People called me an idiot, because their FAQ says they don't collect data. Turns out that not only was i right, but they're also just poaching free money from other destinations on top of that.
I assumed they were an advertising company. Get an extension that's allowed to know what you are buying, from where, and what links you followed to do it, then sell that information for targeted marketing. They probably _do_ that too, but this is so much worse.
Thank you for publishing this. The Honey scam affects ALL publishers that use affiliate links, not only MrBeast and the others who advertise it, that's the real problem. I hope Google bans the extension asap.
I always knew something was sketchy. A business model where you see customers benefit more than the company itself is sure to be a scam! Great investigation, we really need to support content like this.
God damn. I tired it years ago and got so annoyed at the bad or no coupons that I removed it after a few weeks. Didn't realize just how awful it was! Thanks for all your hard work and can't wait for legal eagle to get their asses in court.
False. Folding Ideas Dan Olsen mentioned it casually in one of his videos. I can only assume he thought is was so obvious that making a whole doc on it seemed like a drag more along the lines of public service without something he just couldn’t find passion for. Like it would’ve maybe felt like a feature length, Reagan era PSA. Whatever his reasons he def made his opinion public. Just didn’t dedicate a project to it.
It's crazy that some did, including Linus Media Group, yet they did nothing. They're no strangers to whistleblowing. Oh but look at the data, Linus did more promotions than anyone of this malware. This scandal should explode on them as well. The most popular and trusted tech group on RUclips probably convinced more people than anyone to trust Honey. Where's the outrage against them? I'd never use another one of their links nor buy another piece of their merch, ever.
Lots of Etsy sellers were aware of the crappy business practices that coupon crawlers would do that could destroy your business. You send someone who had a complaint a high discount code, that person has Honey installed, all of a sudden you have a bunch of orders that are using the discount because Honey has copied it and shared it. Etsy now has tools to prevent this, but in 2020 so many people were turning to it to make beer money from a hobby, and were not super business or tech savvy. The code would be used on a bunch of orders and people thought they were legally required to fill them instead of just canceling the orders explaining the code was for 1 buyer. I assume something along these lines will be the next video, just on a larger scale. Glad its getting attention now.
Class action lawsuit payouts, unless you are the lawyers, aren’t worth the checks they’re printed on unless serious permanent physical harm can be determined
When I first heard of Honey, I figured data collection was gonna be how they keep the lights on. “You get coupons, I get metadata on the buying habits of an 18-35 year old white male.” Finding out it is purposefully predatory is surprising
@coco_styles I did not reply to you but to the comment you were replying to. RUclips notifications fucking suck for the behavior of notifying other replying users.
i tried it before it was being sponsored by youtubers waaaaay back in its first few years and it was so incredibly useless. so every time i saw a youtuber promoting it and saying it saved them money i KNEW i couldn’t trust them
So glad I listened to my gut on this. I was suspicious too. Its not within human nature to want to help people to that level. The still small voice within never lies
Same, used it maybe 2-3 times and always kept it disabled. Browser extensions are scary af, we basically allow them access to all of our browsing data.
@@arturohernandez5509 it weird that you say that because when I used it a few years back, I did get some great deals through them? That basically never happens anymore.
They(RUclipsr) did this video BECAUSE IT HURT THEM!!! NOT CONSUMER (VIEWERS)!!! If the product scam the viewers, like betterhelp for example, they DON'T GIVE A F*** about you viewers!!! REMEMBER THAT!!!
If you guys enjoyed this video, please consider supporting me on Patreon: patreon.com/MegaLag
If you have any inside information about PayPal Honey or believe you can contribute to this story, please feel free to contact me confidentially at megalagtips@proton.me
Honey might be a scam but a Shopify app shop is definitely not a scam, I can't believe how much free stuff I get from them.
There are loads of voucher code type sites (UK) which literally never have working codes but open the site you want, I’m guessing it’s the same as this, they are just there to get you to click
Aphid tech already made a video about honey scam 3 years ago
ruclips.net/video/S6zFyO6vviY/видео.htmlsi=3KlKB-ybaOeIHUwt
Edit also this guy talked about honey stealing money back In 2022 ruclips.net/user/shortsh5pJdzEeJMw?si=mu1uFGEHJpQCd28x
You should call it the "Honey Hive". Also you must have been Buzzy with this.
this is crazy
I tried getting my dad to use it back when it was trending, but he just laughed and said, "Come back to me when you find out it's a scam."... touché papa.
well you better go tell him he was right
I tried it for a week and it just felt off, too good to be true
I mean for the most part it just scammed the creators, us consumers weren't really affected but it's still a scam in that sense
"Free money" was the first and only red flag I needed to know it was fishy...
@Hypercore_Gameractually some consumers were. They would intentionally not share coupons that you could have probably found online
seeing those cookies sneakily get replaced in real time makes honey look like malware
It's like the modern version of anti-virus software that you cannot remove from your computer and keeps popping up even when you uninstall it lmao
it actually qualifies as malware without a doubt
some forms of malware literally does this
It is literally classified as malware and spyware
Yeah, this is classified as malware. If a program does something without your consent and isn't something you'd approve of, it's mal(icious) (soft)ware!
This is not content. This is top tier investigative journalism. RESPECT
Seriously. He delved into it perfectly and left no stone unturned
Share, gotta share
This guy is a legend
Hail to the journalist.
Hail to the GOAT
You better watch out for uncovering stuff like this, the next thing you know they are going to say you offed yourself
The fact that Honey confessed to the scam in that email is insane.
Honey just said yea.. you know the truth now.. go spread the word no one will believe you i am unstoppable hahahahaha 😈😈
Hes a low-key whistleblower
I'm more shocked how the brain trust at Paypal paid 4 BILLION for a browser extension scam.
I was honestly really surprised about that, they must not have expected it to amount to a video with tens of millions of views. Wouldn't be surprised if whatever employee freely divulged that info has now been fired lol
Use networks that do the work as promised.. Only a scam for those who got scammed. Basically the wholesaler should not disguise as eBay or Temu etc
Now I'm proud of myself for being too lazy for those 2 clicks for years
me too bro me too
I think i had it for 2 minutes, didnt work for the site i was on/there werent any deals. So i immediately deleted it and never used it again
saameee! Things that are free like that always too good to be true
Felt bro
@JulieFabQ haha same
Thank you Markiplier for the prediction
Thank you MegaLag for the investigation
Thank you LegalEagle for taking it further stand
I think wendover productions is also suing
And 0 thanks to linus for just.. not doing anything while perfectly able too
Fraud, FrAuD, fraUd, definitely criminal, we need class action lawsuits! 💸😖
The three white guy knights of the internet
Straight up copied it from a video 😂
I remember when I installed it and the first use it said "Sorry we could not find any coupons" SO I uninstalled it and found some on my own. LOL
Similar story here, I was actually getting worse deals than what I get from mailers and I either uninstalled it or it just kind of fell off my browser.
exactly!
Same, I downloaded it a few years back and when it said that after a few times, I just uninstalled it. What a load of crap
Wow. This sure was an enlightening. I saw an old video about Affiliates not getting paid. I am not surprised this is going on.
but where do you ind them though?
Thanks!
Holy Moly
Holy moly@@Crxcks
Nice dono
Thanks for donating, he definitely needs that money to take on honey.
This guy is gonna randomly go missing in a week
Ohhh
Yoooo
Real
Don't worry, he has enough AirTags to keep on track
aged badly
The classic case of "We never even hid that this was a scam, you just never checked what we actually do"
Once again shows that you youtubers will shill anything, even if not just hurts their fanbase but also if it hurts themselves
Honestly, most of them probably believed Honey was doing what it promised, but it's true that it highlights how trusting adverts from youtubers is generally not a good idea, though sometimes you have youtubers that "promote" products but discreetly criticize the products in the advert (sometimes its not even discreet) which in turn helps raising awareness on the lies of these companies and still give remuneration to the content creator.
@@monteb6276 If I'm a small creator being offered money upfront to promote what seems to be a harmless software, I'd do it too
@@whitelight2195 youtubers will just promote anything in return for a chunk of change, to be honest. At least the vast majority, and very often for things that are insane to advertise. The sort of stuff you wouldnt even take advice from close friends about, like mental health support and legal services. Its nuts that that's even possible.
@@whitelight2195 idk, I have a tough time believing most of them just throw in the ads without properly checking what the service they promote does. I am more inclined to believe that they had a fair idea how it works, but Honey made them good enough offer to cover the lost affiliate bonuses. This would also explain how so many of them were involved - the more people youtubers promote Honey, the less profitable affiliate links become in general, so you either take Honey's offer or watch your revenue disappear over time. This way only small content creators (who aren't interesting enough for Honey and rely more heavily on affiliate links) get the L.
what i learn from this video: if RUclips is recommending a video for 7 days straight every time you open it, you better watch that video
Words to live by: Be greedy when others are cautious. Be cautious when others are greedy
sames
same lol 😆
Same. I was watching a video and the person promoted “Pie” an ad blocker, but get paid to watch ads through them. I googled and discovered they’re connected to Honey. I remembered this video sitting in my suggestions. So beware the Pie app now being promoted by other RUclipsrs.
Fr
This goes far beyond RUclips creator - this is true journalism. Top work! I will be very interested to see how this plays out in GDPR-compliant countries. I suspect this will not only be unethical, but unlawful.
This is INSANELY predatory. Great investigation, every youtuber who promoted this should make updates to tell consumers what is actually under the hood.
We’ve been sold a lie.
“It’s free; it’s the best deal”
-It’s not the best deal, and it’s stealing from the ppl who actually bring traffic.
Can’t wait to see the rest!!!!
Coffee, I hope you cover this on your main (or void) channel!! The more coverage, the better for sure.
Oh shit coffeezilla here
@@Felinusfish facts
SHIT GET REAL WHEN YOU HAVE THIS DUDE ON YOUR COMMENTS
If Coffezilla thinks this is good investigation, you're on the right track!
Markiplier was right all along LMAOOOO I remember him saying he won't accept honey sponsorships because he just thinks FREE MONEY IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE AND HE DIDN'T UNDERSTAND HOW THEY MADE MONEY FROM IT
That's exactly the reason I was never tempted to install it
MY MIND INSTANTLY WENT TO THAT TOO- like I think about this on a regular Basis helppppp
My first thought when I saw the title was "holly shit mark was right!!!" The mad man called it 4 years ago!!!
Thats exactly why i suspicious of it the mark said that and I knew.
I didn’t even know about Markiplier but I felt the same way in a general sense. I just have an aversion to browser extensions overall. Too scammy. If it’s not clear what your incentives are for providing me the extension, I assume there’s something shady going on.
YT journalism is getting really good
It's becoming the de facto standard. Extremely interesting how that just sort of happens when people are just given a platform to use.
between this guy, Coffezilla, and Friendly Jordies you have some pretty great story telling.
@@ThootenTootinTabootinits not lol
yeah the "legacy media" hate it.
Between guys like this and coffezilla as well as guys like Tommy G it really is impressive how high quality the productions are getting
This is gold. Thank you! We're building a more ethical replacement that will never withhold coupons and we donate 50% of revenue to charity.
PS, I already gave a £100 super thanks, but can’t find my comment associated with it so just made this new one here. I really appreciated your research!
If you used Honey, I would love your feedback in the comments section. Given the Honey controversy, what do you think of our different approach with Good People Click? Do you have suggestions or features you’d like to see?
If you are a creator, also looking for your feedback:
We are primarily focused on adding value to end users (via coupon discounts) and to less fortunate people (via charitable donations). The way GPC would work, and due to the last click attribution model, we would get the affiliate commission and not the influencer since GPC would be used last on the checkout page. So I’m not sure how best to partner with creators yet. Maybe since we donate half our commission to charity, some creators will want to share GPC out of the goodness of their heart. We could track their overall impact on donations raised. The only other idea I have to make a partnership more of a win-win-win is a community shareholder model where we give them shares in the company. I’d welcome any feedback on this and any other ideas!
One of the main advantages we have over Honey is that we do not need to prioritize profits like they do. For example, they will never be able to donate such a significant portion of their revenue due to their existing shareholder base and investor pressure to increase profits. As we saw in the video, they have even gone so far as withholding coupon codes for users just to increase their profit. We don’t have investors, so this gives us much more flexibility on how we can structure and build GPC for the people.
@@GoodPeopleClick Seems like the issue was that I included a link to our blog post which got it auto-removed by YT. So I'll comment below with the main points.
At this point if I see something advertised on RUclips I automatically assume it's a scam.
Fr
Affiliate products are often worse products too u are literally paying for it
@@admiralkaedenooo but Markiplier said he liked it and he was paid $3000 to say so, why would he lieeee? 🥺
Clarification: I'm talking about sponsorships in general, not Honey. People don't buy sponsored products cause they're good quality, they buy it cause Wendigoon said he liked it, and why would he lie? After all, he was paid to say it
And if a product isn't a scam that is getting its word around through sponsorships I will assume it is a scam but it just hasn't been uncovered
It's gone so far that there were a company or two who I thought made good products who I started doubting after seeing them pop up in Instagram ads
So Honey:
Steals revenue from the businesses
Steals referrals from the promoters
And steals data from the users as well?
I'm surprised it took this long for us to hear about all of this
U just named 3 things millions of companies do bro lol this is america.
@ESMorg not everyone lives in "lying about freedom land"
what do they not steal
I'm proud to say that I have never had a PayPal account and have never used any PayPal service 😊
They also lie to users about having applied the biggest coupons
remember, this man is NOT suicidal and is perfectly healthy
It's crazy that it's commonly understood that capitalists, like the owners of Honey, will literally kill investigators if they get in the way of their money-making operations.
😂😂
@@lamonite ya
Boeing says he sounds suicidal
fr
I dont know you, just started seeing the thumbnail 2 weeks ago and thought I'd give it a watch in my leisure. I think you are an odd hero, usually stuff like that come out from within, a whistleblower but the fact that you exposed this big a scam just by taking a look at cookie that was right there is just bravo, reminds me of how often we miss stuff that are right there on the surface. You've earned my subscription even though I've never seen any other video of yours yet! Will wait for the rest of the series!
Same here
Free cheese is only found in a mousetrap.
Underrated comment
Edit: nevermind
This goes hard
but its FREE
It was a honey trap all along. 😂
And Costco
Best advice my college prof gave me:
"The only time you *need* to read terms of service is if the product or service is free."
if something is free its because YOU are the product xD. law of life.
Unless it's Disney lmao
You should always read at least the permissions in terms of service. You'd spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a new Ford and in the terms it gives them permission to track, record, and sell data at an absolutely insane level. Even things like, your sexual activity and things you say inside the car. Look into it, it's insane.
Unless it’s open source
except for disneyplus apparently.
“WHERE DOES HONEY GET THE MONEY?!” -Markiplier 2019
HE WAS RIGHT TO BE SUSPICIOUS!!! 😂
Same with MrBeast, I watched an old video years ago and he was like "They use new tech to make money faster to give YOU better deals" yeah right, new tech of stealing other's money!
@@zapx1239 yea if they had some magic new tech to make money they would use it to simply make money and be done with it.
Everything with #PeterThiel involved is filthy!😮💨
why would anyone in their right mind even listen to influencers or even click any link they provide, or any affiliate link for that matter when i'm not getting paid a penny to click on it? i dont trust anyone's link. it could be malicious for all i know. i go directly to the source and search. and why use honey when Rakuten has been around for years and actually pays AND sends confirmation emails with the dollar amount being deposited to your account? because some influencer said so? the same influencers that fall off of cliffs taking selfies? LOL
@@zapx1239 your first problem was watching Mr. Beast. The dude is illegitimate and a scammer, don’t give him any media attention.
Thanks! Well done Sir
In the name of protecting naive users everywhere from predatory, malicious, and conniving companies online. Thank you for your great video.
How does it hurt the users?
My man❤
@@JakeSkillman Well you'd have to watch the video. He couldn't make it more clear.
@@JakeSkillman In the video he details how Honey enters paid deals with the retailers to actually suppress the best coupon codes instead of what it claims to do, which is find the best coupon codes available.
@JakeSkillman Honey gives you worse coupons then you wpuld get if you searched yourself. Honey tells you something is the best deal when its not but rather they are making money because of commissions from their partners. Essentially telling you it's the best deal when you could have found a better deal paying less
Your analogy that explains how Honey is basically a predatory sales associate who hangs out at the register & hands out his own business cards was PERFECT.
100%
yup
if you didnt know, Jesus will fulfill you more than anything in this world, I speak from experience (from when i did Romans 10:9-13), he loves you and wants to be in a meaningful (not romantic) relationship with you. :) “that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Romans 10:9-13 KJV “and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.” Mark 1:15 KJV If you want proof that Jesus and the Bible are true look a documentary called “Ron Wyatt discoveries 2022” on RUclips and a RUclips channel called Expedition Bible. They both examine archeological sites and discoveries that prove the Bible, and even reference secular sources. (Just don’t convert to 7th day Adventism after watching the documentary) And lastly if you don’t know the gospel and want to be saved search up “abc’s of Salvation Teenmissions” on Google and it should be the first or second result. When you click on it read the whole thing, and do what it says and have faith in Jesus while you are doing it, do not doubt, and if it is hard for you to do what it says, ask Jesus to help you, have faith that he will, and he will. God Bless :)
Not an analogy when that's what it is.
@@Sugondeese tell me you do not know what an analogy is without telling me you have no idea what in analogy is
@@superbadisfunny 🤣
I always assumed Honey just sells their users' data. How naive of me. I couldn't even imagine the level of scumbaggery they're actually capable of.
same! Nothing is free.
It tracks with PayPal's history of being complete scumbags. They would freeze peoples' accounts and do w/e they pleased with the money for months at a time.
whats sad is that people think their data being sold is an acceptable cost, but some rich influencers losing a little bit of revenue isn't
@@AEOH3X I don't think my data being sold without my express consent is an acceptable cost, and I've never installed Honey.
I am sure they do that in addition to their bs moves. Read the EULA. I am usre there are clauses in there that allow them to spy on your every move.
A good rule of thumb for navigating the internet: if it’s too good to be true, it’s too good to be true.
💯 i wish more people would follow this advice.
I thought honey was tracking marketing data. I was way off
Holy crap
Pretty sure they are doing that too. On top of everything else. Probably way more invasive than anyone would accept if they truly knew too.
I always thought they just added their referral to any purchase
Yeah I always kind of assumed there was a grift somewhere so never installed it to be safe. I didn't realise they were scamming literally everyone.
yeah i'm fairly sure paypal bought honey so they could use it to gather data from rival payment processors. no matter what payment method you use, if you use honey, paypal knows about that sale
When something is _"FREE",_ *you're* the product.
The thing that gets me is that youtubers who DIDN'T partner with honey must've also been getting their affiliate commissions stolen as well. Never even associated themselves with the products but still robbed by it. Atrocious.
This part! 👏🏼
I don't properly understand sorry can you explain? How are they still losing money by not using? Im genuinely curious
@@muhammadarifyap1323 people who click on affiliate links from let's say, a small content creator is ISN'T sponsored by honey, might still use the extension and therefore honey will take the commission money from the creator
12:10 1K subs RUclipsr who try to earn small money, and many others small RUclipsr and blogger become a victim. Feels bad man.
@@muhammadarifyap1323 consumers who have honey will be using it on youtubers affiliate links causing them to lose the cash even if they didnt get the payout from promoting honey
The fact that millions of people used it for years without ever noticing the scam makes me wonder how many other scams like this have gone unnoticed.
There are scams from the 90's that are still being used today. Like not even changed for the digital age. Live long enough and you don't need to know if something is actually a scam, it just feels wrong.
I was wondering the same.
all of them, ngl 😂
Like ?@@royedwards2366
Some scams like religions, the American Dream or capitalism have gone on for centuries.
Heard you mentioned on the news on the radio today!! The work you’ve done is amazing
I'm an old dude. And for my whole existence on earth two things are true, nothing is free and if it sounds too good to be true it usually is.
Yep, that was my immediate thought.
even then, i had it but there was like neverrrr good codes ever
Fr I'm a minor but I still live by these sayings😭
I always found it really fishy how they advertised it all as free money and coupons while being able to pay big youtubers for the sponsorship. Like, where does their revenue come from? Now I see I was right to be skeptical all along
@silli_clownmaedaThat's a good thing, and I rarely praise pessimism. Hold onto that, and you'll go far in life when you're an adult.
This is the kind of journalism we're ready for. Have a coffee on me!
Expensive coffee!
@Leyhkeze Probably a size medium in this economy 😉
@@Leyhkeze in KiwiLand, that's 2 Medium Specialty coffees
In Canada that barely buys just the plastic cup
In America that can 1-5 coffees depending on the region💀
This feels a lot like when I got my first job as an architect, I had designed a subdivision for the company I worked for, was looking at around a $15,000 commission which would have paid off my student loans. A coworker opened the drawing at the last minute and move a wall socket over a foot, drawing was saved with his name and he got the commission. My boss told me better luck next time... I quit a day later after deleting the entire subdivision drawing set. I won the case when they took me to court, and they were ordered to pay me the commission for the work I did. And my court fees. The expression, "don't bite the hand that feeds you" comes to mind.
How did they let that even happen? Can you explain further why the said tough shit over one difference
It made me angry that you went through that, glad you won your case
Looks @ boss hearing the verdict: Better luck next time
Strange system of payment.
Ket me guess: That coworker was in agreement with the boss. The company saves the commission and the coworker gets a couple thousand.
My dad always said that "free cheese is only found in a mouse trap"
Your dad seems to be a very wise person, i hope he’s doing ok.
The fact you discovered this, and seemingly was first person to call them out is admirable. You made it so everyone is paying attention and now Legal Eagle is suing. You did a major favor to the RUclips community. You’re a real hero.
actually someone else on youtube who got 120k view did this 4-5 years ago and never got the attention needed
@@chenivan6171can you send the link?
@@chenivan6171can you share on who this person is? Or the video so we can go watch?
@@LukasDevilTrigger commenting to get notified if he ever posts proof of this or ghosts the thread
never installed because Honey sounded too much like BonziBuddy to me. yes, I'm older.
Honey's Chrome Extension down from 20 million to 16 million users in 10 days is a devastating blow to PayPal. Keep safe MegaLag! Love your videos :)
Omg that's wild. I saw this video not even 48 hours ago and it was just at 17 million. I can only image the panic the Honey execs are experiencing rn lol
My burning question for part 2 is- *Why would sellers ever pay Honey*? They know it isn't driving customers to their site. They must have known all along that it's stealing someone else's commission. Terminate the affiliate contract, and worst-case scenario the vendor pockets their own affiliate costs until Honey withers away.
@@jbutler8585 Honey only shows lower percentage coupons, saves money for stores I guess
@@jbutler8585 I think that might have to do with honey limiting the amount of discounts. Like the lady on the podcast said it takes the incentive of customers to search for coupon codes and offers lower discounts which is ultimately better for manufacturers.
@@jbutler8585as seen in the video: they can control the discounts which are applied on their shops.
Adblocker? “Doesn’t follow the best practices for chrome extensions” ❌
Literal thief extension? Perfectly fine ✅
we are talking about google here. they probably get a small cut themselves
Well of course - Honey is stealing from influencers, marketplaces and consumers, not from Google. Google is in the ad selling business - blocking ads affects their bottom line.
At this point, my expectations of google are worse than actual government and mafia
I mean I like ad block but it's sort of similar to theft.
AdBlocker: "Honey? What honey?"
I feel like there should be a law that if a company is found doing something like this. They should be forced out of business permanently.
Shawn Hogan was convicted for wire fraud over cookie stuffing on ebay. It IS illegal.
Uninstalling Honey now. Thank you for this incredible research. Keep speaking out. They must be stopped. It's disgusting.
you know what's disgusting? giving 5 dollars on a free video to a youtuber with 800k subscribers...
@@ayoissacdamn let people do what they want
@@ayoissacthen i wanna see you donate 500 😂😂😂
@@ayoissacwait how is this disgusting? pleasee expand if you dont mind
@@ayoissac not your money not your problem
The irony that a "honeypot" is literally used as a distraction to divert your attention from what you were actually trying to do. The clue was in the name.
"catch more flies with honey"
No, the term "honeypot" really describes something totally different and much more sinister..
@@FluffyFractalshardIt maybe but honeypot in his context is correct.
“You honey-dicking?!?”😂
@@FluffyFractalshard PayPal is still harvesting data and selling it into the data warehouse where it is bought by the government. It's the definition of a honeypot.
It warms my heart that someone speaks out with huge evidence on a corrupted corporation
real
Do you know what will wrm your heart more? The class-action lawsuit coming against them, with legal representative the Legal Eagle.
@@4dotaonly True, I was blown away when I watched this video for the first time and seeing everyone reacted the same way as I did. We were naive to think a youtube sponsorship would be such a scam as this. TMNF had a cheating scandal in 2021 and everyone had a very similar reaction.
We should go after the original creator too
if you think about it deeply, free to use extension, saves YOU money, and it was brought by paypal for 4 billion freaking money, and it have all that money to pay for youtubers to put ad on their video, it just doesn't add up, somewhere along the way, people got to get paid, and as it usually turn out for something that's too good to be true, it was, and a scam, not much of a shocker there
Megalag's video is viral, views are going parabolic. much deserved success, congratulations.
Reminder for everyone to leave a 1 STAR review upon uninstalling! Great way to warn unaware consumers!
this
Apple hides reviews at the request of billionaires like Thiel.
when i gave my reason for uninstalling I clicked "Other: Fraud"
There are apps with 4,5 stars that have mostly 1 and 2 star reviews.
Its the same om IMDB, stuff get 1 star, yet they ignore them at gives the stuff 8 stars.
They might delete bad reviews, though. So keep an eye on that!
The worst part is that Honey basically became a youtuber's own poison pill. Theyre essentially advertising for the person robbing them.
I’m just imagining higher-ups at Honey maniacally laughing every time a RUclipsr accepted a partnership with them
Depends on how you look at it. If we consider that they were convincing us to use the service, while repeating untruthful claims only to get some cash, I'd call it a wonderful case of poetic justice.
This is essentially exactly what the guy explains in the first minute of the video only much less intelligently worded
God bless this man 🙏🦘
God bless the downfall of Honey 🙏😭
God bless President Trump 🙏🇺🇸
I have little enough sympathy for the influencer/"creator" community anyways.
Like so many other things in today's life, we use a misleading word instead of calling a thing what it is.
"Inaccurate" instead of Liar. "Influencer" instead of Salesman.
Because that's what they are. Salesmen.
The golden rule of "stay away from anything advertised on RUclips" is still going strong. Literally every single sponsor eventually gets exposed for some really shady business practices or for being an outright scam.
*Revelation 3:20*
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
HEY THERE 🤗 JESUS IS CALLING YOU TODAY. Turn away from your sins, confess, forsake them and live the victorious life. God bless.
*Revelation 22:12-14*
And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
Yo an AC fan
and thats why you should use NORD VPN
Only believe the small creators.
@@JesusPlsSaveMe man get out of here
Even I no longer use this kind of coupon finder, I thank you for your work here. Great Job for showing this truth to the world.
Rule of thumb: if something says it will get you free or easy money, it is a scam. Remember that money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere will always be the consumers.
if the product is "free", then remember you are the product
The classic "If you aren't paying for the product, you are the product"
But what if that man is dressed like the riddler and screaming on the TV at 3am ?
Can tell if PIE is safe it free ad blocker created by former honey employees
Well, people publish free open source code online as a community; that which is actually free. Use as you will, Read as you will, Try at your will.
Sharing coupons is not too insane of an idea, it could easily be done on a subreddit or a github repo. Where honey got money to finance itself and ads, was NOT from the coupons, it was from stealing affiliate credit. If it was not donated to the public on a public repo/forum, it is not likely free.
They could totally make an open source, community contributed, Honey-like extension, where it relied entirely on user submission. This would be good, and it would be "free coupons" that people shared.
approving ads saying this is the best deal you'll find on the internet then deliberately withholding the best deal is THE DEFINITION of false advertising
They should get shafted by the EU. Not the first time for Paypal either. 😂
@@rkan2i love how you got no hope the US will do anything about it since they got no customer rights whatsoever and put all your hope on the EU.
They don't say on the internet, but on that specific shop. Coupons included.
@@Max-me9ol Literally we Americans owe the EU so much for inadvertently helping protect consumers more than our snail government ☠
we were having some tiny progress with finally at least having a competent person in charge of the FTC but unfortunately we're losing her in January for a guy who doesn't prioritize consumers so we're cooked again
False advertising is only a crime if someone can afford to sue, and only bad for a company if someone sues and gets more money out than the false advertising made. EU regulators are basically the only party in the west that can be that someone in both instances, unless severe health outcomes are involved.
I fell for honey pretty quickly, had it for a few months, didn't save a single cent, and deleted the trash.
It actually worked like 10 years ago. They got bought out in 2020. That's probably the exact moment it stopped working.
I just redeemed over $30 in cash back from honey to paypal off 2 purchases. Honey is only good if you know how to use it properly. Coupons are usually a scam they don't work. I only go for cash back purchases when I use honey.
It used to work better because online retailers were worse about tracking their own coupon codes. It's like the old websites for finding coupons used to be pretty effective as well.
You would find half off birthday coupon codes that would work all year etc.
Now? Yeah they cleaned that up.
I actually got probably like $80 in cash back from offers last year. I used their "offers" for stuff I wanted to buy anyways, and got the cash back deposited back to my PayPal account as cash, so it did work. Haven't used it in months, and just uninstalled it recently because the intrusive popups got annoying. After watching the video, no chance I'm ever trying it again lol
Whats going on above me.
THIS is the type of content that should go “viral”. Well done mate.
This is the type of video I'm grateful for being made, and for being free.
Only 21 likes in 13 hrs?
Give him some likes my brothers.
Yess
W person
@ he optionally chose to pay. It’s his freedom to pay rather than being force to pay for the content the good. The reason he donated 45 bucks, seems to be because the fact he offered this information for free. Perhaps he felt he deserves more money. Just like when you tip a waiter and increase the tip or decrease depending on their service.
Uninstalled the extension. Thank you for making this public!
@@Squidom_who doesn’t already lmaoooooo
@@Squidom_ Just sign up to Delete Me or any of those other promoted products lol. Wondering if these are also legit...
The point of the video wasnt just that it was stealing data though, its actively stealing money everytime you use it if you use an affiliate code. That means its active right now and still making money. @Squidom_
@JoeyLoey445 who doesn't, what?
You really installed it? Are you mentally challenged?
As a PI, I know how difficult and time consuming investigations of this magnitude can be. You did amazing work, thank you!
PIs don't exist, you're just a walking hoodie and sunglasses. Nice try though.
Hi Magnum 👋
@ magnum? What lol.
OH. Is that you, Higgins??
That must be an interesting job! My local paper occasionally posts ads for a PI service in the classified section and I've always wondered what it's like day-to-day. Never had any reason to hire one but when I was a kid reading Raymond Chandler it seemed like a exciting career choice!
U can afford to tip $10 as a PI ?
Thank you so much for all the work you put into this and sharing it with us. Corporations have gotten out of hand.
Honestly this is class action worthy against PayPal and anyone else falsely advertising their product. I’m so sick of the grift economy. I’m sick of being a product and a consumer bombarded by ads.
yeah, we're all exhausted by the fact that basically the only "innovation" anywhere that has happened in the past decade is just more and more advanced ways of fleecing people of their money. Unfortunately for us peons none of this is class action lawsuit material because they openly tell people who actually directly ask based on how easy the beginning of this video's investigation went. They found a legal loophole and ran with it, and in a country where laws are bought and sold with "lobbying" firms nothing actually profitable is going to get legitimately punished. if the only punishment for a crime is a fine it means it's legal for a price.
this isn't the first time PayPal has done bad.
@@vanxkren5636bit silly to reply with that. Guys after stating he's sick of being a product and constantly grifted by ads...theyre clearly very aware of the thousands of corps doing this shit, he doesn't need to be told PayPal did bad before like thats new info. Guys about 90 percent though his anti Corp speedrun and he's being told of bad corps by someone just starting to play the game.
I am sick of ads everywhere.
Television ads are getting wierder and wierder and youtube ads always this trash nobody needs.
Manscaped = regular stuff but rebranded
raid shadow legends = online casino
You are not a product if you do it rarely and cleverly.
You did the world a great service with this video. It has inspired me to be more critical of businesses whose profit models aren't obvious.
For real
Maybe just be more critical if business
all corporations are greedy, you gotta stay vigilant✊️
@@Pinko-Diamondbro just said that 😐
As he says in the beginning, if you can’t work out what the business model is then you are probably the product.
Unless you actively try to make yourself anonymous, you’re being tracked and your data is being sold. May as well take some measly pennies off big corp if they’re going to advertise to you anyway.
Side note, affiliate links normally don’t lead to the best deals and you should always search independently if you are working on a budget. If you want to support a creator, donate to them directly.
Scammers are the ultimate bottom-feeders of humanity, thriving on deceit and feeding off the pain of the innocent, proving that their moral void is deeper than any pit of greed or cruelty imaginable.
@MrJones-wk7kt
It's almost funny how much better we all could be if they just... didn't exist. Obviously, society still has *_plenty_* of other problems, but fraudsters man...
No replys over 27$ dam
@@GIGANTHEGOAT1Here's another one.
$200? Oh this is ridiculous.
Edit: It’s like people are asking to be reported.
Cons and Piracy . conspiracy is the system not a theory
I live how measured and restrained your response is. THIS SHIT IS CLEARLY ILLEGAL, you're a good journalist and you've demonstrated your case with concrete proof.
i remember using honey for pizza once, and they just straight up removed some food for the "deal"
Well… they were saving you money 😅
Literally free money
Free money my ass
I was even more amazed that he made $35 on 1 VPN purchase. No wonder every RUclipsr is trying to push for VPN sales its basically a gold mine as far as affiliate payouts go.
Yeah, I was a bit blown away on that too! 40%?!
Wasn't BetterHelp $100 for every person who signed up? Not even every paid subscriber, just signed up? I might be mixing up with some other company.
RUclipsrs are disingenuous greedy fake people.
If you see on the sides, there is a 100%, then 40%
By guess, I say new sponsors get 100% of the cut for the first month, and then 40% later on
Well in our current world VPN is necessary. Ppl rarely change their VPN service. So they get influencers incentives to promote them. They want as many of the new users as they can get
So glad i never used Honey. The pure doublespeak of their business is quite disturbing and disgusting. Thank you for the kind of investigative journalism we need but rarely seem to get these days.
Thos guy is an actual legend
You are mistaken. You are supposed to mislead people using journalism in this modern era. Only true journalism would seek the truth.
1984 reference detected, liking comment in return ❤
These scambags should be sued. Thanks for the heads-up.
Half of those influencers shown STILL promote Better Help as a legit product too, so I’m not surprised.
Yep, and when I had ads on RUclips, Better Help was the sponsor half the time. It's as if we got collective amnesia and forgot how shady that business was
yeah, there's a channel that made a video saying figures like Andrew tate are bad for men's health and instead pushed better help.
You have to be a real muppet to actually take ads seriously on this site. I'm more mad at the "content creators" than Honey. They do the exact same thing except Honey doesn't steal nearly as much of your time.
Curious. What is fishy with Better Help?
Advertising honey is not the same as better help tbf. Like the creators are being stolen from and don’t know that the audience is being stolen from aswell. Betterhelp tho just shows who likes a check simply because of the amount of bad publicity it has
Previous patterns have shown me that if a business pumps out ads on YT about something, it's most likely a scam.
They all are
I've been seeing a lot of ads for the new Red Magic phone
Totally wrong dude... RAID Shadow Legends is totally not a scam XD
@@AmxDude1969 typing this comment on a redmagic 9 pro, it's a great phone! *Not an ad*
Nordvpn is a scam guys!!!
This is absolutely one of the hardest hitting well made videos on RUclips and I'm super embarrassed to have promoted them and see my name on those lists. This video is about to change things for the better and I will do everything in my power to spread the word and help the cause!
If you TRULY want to do "everything in your power" like you say and you want to keep your word, be the first to get a lawyer and SUE them!
I subbed you, I wanna see your follow up video to this!!
It's David!
@@TiffaniSpeakzwhy would he make a follow up video
The problem is that there are multiple products that influencers peddle without knowing what they are. The numerous VPN ads, for example, is particularly galling: yet another product that hoovers data from unsuspecting members of the public. But dozens of folks still promote them. Do you?
Super impressed with your research! Thank you for this, I uninstalled honey back in 2020 when I realized that the extension would never find me deals, while in some instances I was able to find the coupons myself. Glad to learn (even if 5 years later) that my instinct was correct. What you said in the beginning is so true, the key rule to this age of the internet is: if the service is free, you're probably the product.
simple rule of thumb I follow- The harder it's pushed on this platform (advertising, sponsorships, etc.), the higher likelihood that it is a scam, or at the very least, incredibly predatory. (Looking at you, Raid: Scam Legends)
Raid: Scandal Legends
dont forget betterhelp!
NordVPN scandal when?
@galzd3918 NordVPN and Gfuel?
Even better? Those super annoying Pie ads that show up multiple times a video are associated with Honey Paypal lol.
Be careful, lawyer up and make sure you're safe. this is incredible work!
I didn't like the LMG bashing, but we know they don't sue,.. still this could've been handled better,... 3rd biggest promoter that also cancled their work with them called out, but the 2 biggest not called out only shown?... that's not proper
Better call Saul...or i guess LawbyMike is good.
@@markus1351 nah more people should talk abt what clowns LMG are lmao
@@bunanapudding why are they clowns tho? You're just throwing words without any content
@@markus1351 i love LTT but even i could see they messed up. They should of let people know. at the bare minimum let their influencer friends know.
Finally, the question "how does this thing make money" has been answered. That question never has a good answer.
Not only the corporate decision makers, but the developers who implemented this fraud should be held accountable - as in prison time. There needs to be real consequences for their actions.
Shoutout to Markiplier who warned us about the dodgy nature of honey back in 2022 and said everybody will be talking about it about how bad it is.
Give me more info on honey. Mark and someother youtubers have started a search on this topic. I have personally talked to him...
actually that was in 2019.
he said it in 2019 not 2022
Mark talked about it two years ago, which was 2019... Right guys?
Thought it was 2020
Id rather spend $10 thanking you for all the time and energy invested in your investigation, than be thankful if honey ever did "save" me even more money. Which i never used btw.
You just gave 30% of that tip to Google. Kind of ironic how stupid some people are. Even on a video about getting ripped off, you're getting ripped off.
@@millll111lllI atleast some money went to him... honey takes all of it + how is that stupid? in what other way was he meant to donate to him?
@@FGammer79 I see you need your hand held, but did you know this donation also gave another 30% to Apple if he used an Apple platform to make that payment? So you can simple ask the content creator how to best donate a tip that won't get 60% scammed away by greedy billionaire companies.
bruh theres a patreon
@@millll111lllIsybau ur annoying ash
This is going to be a huge class action lawsuit. Calling it now.
Agreed 100%. They defrauded both consumers and the influencers. I think there could be 2 different class actions.
Should be, but there's no way it's going to happen. Laws aren't enforced
It's literal fraud. Someone is going to jail.
@@phimuskapsiwho is being defrauded? The product works exactly as advertised. Is it good? No. But what do you expect from a product whose main selling point is "free money"
You are absolutely naive to think anything will ever happen to these people
This also shows how the so-called "influencers" are actually not that savvy and not worth being influenced by. Something that always transpares in their videos IMO.
One more notch in my "never use any product you've heard about from a YT influencer" policy.
Another win for the SponsorBlock crowd.
the only one that's done me right is a delta 8 company
Pickings are getting slim, aren't they?
@@Romanticoutlaw just wait long enough
What about surfshark vpn
Well structured and informative! Scams like this shouldn't be allowed to happen for years on end.
Thank you for fighting the good fight!
he better like reply and pin this comment
damn 50€
share a bit vro 🙏
Agreed 💯
If he didn’t reply or like your comment, honey has caught up to him
Imagine half way through the video he says “let’s talk about honey, the sponsor of this video”
Imagine if ninja got a low taper fade
@@ShaneisCool777 It's still a massive meme
@stephensemchishon3100
_"Absolute garbage"_
hOnEy Is A fReE blah blah blah
Yeah, my cursor has been hovering the X button for a while. Doesn’t matter what the sponsor is about.
Imagine you're the guy who finally sells Honey to Paypal for 4 BILLION BUCKS and now you're like: "Bruh I gotta jump on one of my 5 yachts and sail off into the sunset till this cools down... Oh naaahhh I'm not responsible anymore"
Exactly. If nobody can answer the simple question "Where does the money come from", something is going on.
technically there is no money. there is coupon codes. they can be like a "google" for coupons. and they are paypal so one could say they are a gateway for people to start using paypal. alas the corporate bs again
Same with Pfizer and the Covid vaccines
That's why I'm suspicious of Mr Beast.
The people in the room printing money:👀
@magentasky234 nah he makes money mostly off his massive sponsorships and quite a bit off ad revenue on yt as well. not really a valid point : )
This actually makes so much sense. I myself have seen a decline in affiliate link sales even with an increasing number of clicks. So disappointing. And creators have no real way of finding out how much has been stolen from us without websites giving up the information, if they even keep record of it.
LUKEE!! :D
I wonder if you can use any laws to get the information out of them
@Xnoob545 I hope so. I just worked out how much money they have potentially stolen from me as a small RUclipsr and it’s a depressingly large amount 😞
On Luke 🤰
Honey likely has the information in logs, class action discovery was pretty much made for this
Its so fulfilling seeing the product/service you were suspicious of the entire time finally being exposed for actually being bad, very good video. We need investigations like these
Same. It's satisfactory.
If it’s too good to be true
what i wanna know is how do i get in on the class action lawsuit
Cap
But cute little happy mascot coin!!!
Really fucked up to see the imagery used. What a perfect microcosm of corporate scumbaggery within our daily lives.
Thanks a lot for informing the public about theses scams🙏 When are you publishing part 2?
years ago, I found their ads so annoying that I refused to give them any chance. this feels very vindicating to learn after all this time
Trueee haha
exactly lol
Shady that online payments have started asking tip or change.
Also missed opportunity to call this video document "The Honey Trap"
22:23 they also pouche the corporations scary that uninstalling dosent work and it can be counted as malware😰
I feel the exact same way about Pie, and it doesn't help that Pie is made by the same people who made Honey. I can't wait for stuff to come out about Pie too inevitably
ikr
Things are about to get real as the top 1% of 1% of RUclips creators are now doing reactions to this video, sending viewers to watch this video. Also, in less than 24 hours, the top Google search results for Honey have gone from all but one negative link to the complete opposite.
You did good, and are almost certainly on the nice list this year.
A big thing was him pointing out the top RUclipsrs in the video. Soft handedly forced them to make a video or look complicit in the scam. Made a lot easier since many of them are victims of the scam.
all the big youtubers and streamers are owned by the same talent agency - Right Media (swap R with N)
A youtuber did the same video 4 years ago ruclips.net/video/n1Cz4S5jNU8/видео.html
@@mcgruff3309 how did you put a link on comments
@@mcgruff3309 how do I know if this not a bot
I was always wondering how does a free browser extention company make money themselves if it's all free, but didn't think it would get this diabolical. Thank you for doing a great work uncovering all of this, it's beyond crazy.
It's easy, the Jewish creators
I hadn't watched the video. I've used honey only as a spot check for codes then deleted right after. Maybe tried it 4 times with no success and never turf it again
The wondering how something free could make money is the reason I never downloaded it, but prior to this video I just assumed it was massive data harvesting (Chrome extensions can have scary levels of access + malware potential). This is worse
@whenhen yea, I figured they were scrapping cookies and open tabs/ activity. Like a much worse version of Facebook and Google tracking
I always assumed they'd make it by gathering your data and selling it or by getting a comission. I didn't expect though that it would delete the referrals of the people who initially promoted a product to you lol.
This is why I'm so glad we live in a country with uncensored press. Honey, being owned by PayPal, could've bought off some politician and gotten this shut down.
I'm also glad for this guy in particular. Thanks for doing all this research man! Good on you, and keep going!
Holy crap this is insane. I never installed Honey because the business model did not pass the sniff test for me. Like it was never clear how Honey make their money so I assumed it had to be something sketchy. This explains everything and I hope they go the way of BonziBuddy.
I just assume that the more content creators who are stumping for a product or company, the bigger a fraud that product or company will turn out to be. That caution hasn't let me down once in all these years.
There is zero difference between a content creator making an ad for something and any other form of commercial. It's just another advertisement, full stop. People really need to get over this fantasy that content creator's inherently have a clue, let alone always have their best interests in mind. There is no universe where I'd let a random app hunt for coupon codes for me, let alone just because someone whose videos I enjoy was paid to sell the service to me.
It's nice to see you alive man :D , always watched your videos back in the days until you stopped posting videos :(
I've been saying for years that there's no way data collection isn't part of their model, because there's no other way a model like this *can* make money. People called me an idiot, because their FAQ says they don't collect data. Turns out that not only was i right, but they're also just poaching free money from other destinations on top of that.
What I hate is that nowadays, even if you pay for the service as a subscription, they still harvest your data, because nothing ever is enough.
I assumed they were an advertising company. Get an extension that's allowed to know what you are buying, from where, and what links you followed to do it, then sell that information for targeted marketing. They probably _do_ that too, but this is so much worse.
Thank you for publishing this. The Honey scam affects ALL publishers that use affiliate links, not only MrBeast and the others who advertise it, that's the real problem. I hope Google bans the extension asap.
PayPal is largely owned by Vanguard, BackRock and State Street.
This extension will exist till the end.
@@RKroese oh my... BlackRock? Yeah they own the world.
Omg i love honey 🍯 😍
It can steal from Mr. Beast? All the more reason to use it 😂.
know the shithole google is doubt
I always knew something was sketchy. A business model where you see customers benefit more than the company itself is sure to be a scam! Great investigation, we really need to support content like this.
I smell a beautiful new era of RUclips coming...
And I always stand with this mantra: If a product is "free", the you're the product
@@huwawwew youtube is free...
200 donation is crazy
@kakakoko5427 that is around 2 USD maybe a little over. still good to donate to good youtubers you like though
God damn. I tired it years ago and got so annoyed at the bad or no coupons that I removed it after a few weeks. Didn't realize just how awful it was! Thanks for all your hard work and can't wait for legal eagle to get their asses in court.
Great journalism. Crazy that no one ever came on to this and exposed it publicly.
False. Folding Ideas Dan Olsen mentioned it casually in one of his videos. I can only assume he thought is was so obvious that making a whole doc on it seemed like a drag more along the lines of public service without something he just couldn’t find passion for. Like it would’ve maybe felt like a feature length, Reagan era PSA. Whatever his reasons he def made his opinion public. Just didn’t dedicate a project to it.
It's crazy that some did, including Linus Media Group, yet they did nothing. They're no strangers to whistleblowing. Oh but look at the data, Linus did more promotions than anyone of this malware. This scandal should explode on them as well. The most popular and trusted tech group on RUclips probably convinced more people than anyone to trust Honey. Where's the outrage against them? I'd never use another one of their links nor buy another piece of their merch, ever.
Lots of Etsy sellers were aware of the crappy business practices that coupon crawlers would do that could destroy your business. You send someone who had a complaint a high discount code, that person has Honey installed, all of a sudden you have a bunch of orders that are using the discount because Honey has copied it and shared it.
Etsy now has tools to prevent this, but in 2020 so many people were turning to it to make beer money from a hobby, and were not super business or tech savvy. The code would be used on a bunch of orders and people thought they were legally required to fill them instead of just canceling the orders explaining the code was for 1 buyer.
I assume something along these lines will be the next video, just on a larger scale. Glad its getting attention now.
yes. linux team knew but decided to keep it hidden. shame on them.
@@Roadrunnerz45contractual obligations
This smells like a good “Class Action Lawsuit!”
They scammed the influencers, but worse, they scammed you, the consumers who used it.
Class action lawsuit payouts, unless you are the lawyers, aren’t worth the checks they’re printed on unless serious permanent physical harm can be determined
@@Brent-jj6qi So, What... Do nothing? Or say Fk it and just go Luigi on em?? There has to be some middle ground.
Otherwise it's just chaos.
Actually this is fraud and criminal charges should be filed against paypal. They bought the company and knew the coding was illegal.
But Saul goodman😢@@Brent-jj6qi
by what the video ended on they also scammed people that sold products seems like it was a scam on all fronts
When I first heard of Honey, I figured data collection was gonna be how they keep the lights on. “You get coupons, I get metadata on the buying habits of an 18-35 year old white male.” Finding out it is purposefully predatory is surprising
Yes.
Sigma sigma bou
stop it, you're giving them ideas
Giving what ideas
@coco_styles I did not reply to you but to the comment you were replying to. RUclips notifications fucking suck for the behavior of notifying other replying users.
This is the like 20th time I seen this on my page, I guess its a sign to watch it.
Ty you did it
I feel so vindicated for being suspicious of honey for years.
Frr
i tried it before it was being sponsored by youtubers waaaaay back in its first few years and it was so incredibly useless. so every time i saw a youtuber promoting it and saying it saved them money i KNEW i couldn’t trust them
So glad I listened to my gut on this. I was suspicious too. Its not within human nature to want to help people to that level. The still small voice within never lies
Same, used it maybe 2-3 times and always kept it disabled.
Browser extensions are scary af, we basically allow them access to all of our browsing data.
@@arturohernandez5509 it weird that you say that because when I used it a few years back, I did get some great deals through them? That basically never happens anymore.
You should be so proud of this. Dude literally made a huge change in the world with this one video
Sadly, it won't change anything there have been dozens of these scams and people will never learn
This video appeared in my homepage several times, I ignored it but decided to watch it. Totally worth it
same here
Same here
Ok
Same
They(RUclipsr) did this video BECAUSE IT HURT THEM!!! NOT CONSUMER (VIEWERS)!!!
If the product scam the viewers, like betterhelp for example, they DON'T GIVE A F*** about you viewers!!! REMEMBER THAT!!!