The Honey browser extension scam, brought to you by PayPal, class action filed

[Heartbreaker]

It's amazing that PayPal paid billions for a company that has a business model based on fraud:

TLDW: They promote a browser extension that claims it will find you deal coupons.

But actually it steals affiliate leaks from promotors, oh and part of their business models is finding you lesser coupons...

Legal Eagle Lawyer has filed a class action:

Honey's business model is "an adpocalypse all day every day" for creators. LegalEagle just filed a class action suit to get them paid. - Tubefilter

It's been just over a week since YouTuber MegaLag uploaded his bombshell Honey exposé accusing the coupon-finding browser extension of snatching content LegalEagle tells Tubefilter that if MegaLag's allegations against Honey are accurate, "there is basically an adpocalypse going on all day every...

www.tubefilter.com

 

[lxskllr]

Shocker. Proprietary software's fucking people over.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Didn't dirtbag Theil start that whole mess of a company?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Interesting. Seen that extension in many Youtube sponsors and always felt it was probably too good to be true.

 

[lxskllr]

It doesn't even make sense. Somebody's losing in the scheme. That's the only way it can work. Why would anyone offer you a coupon when you're at the 'buy this shit now' page? The seller isn't interested in losing money. The user isn't paying in $. I didn't watch the whole video, but it wouldn't surprise me if the user was paying some in personal data. Honey is a for profit company, so where's the profit? The profit is from the people getting fucked.

I've known of Honey for a good while, but I don't use coupons unless I already have a relationship with the vendor, and I don't use proprietary software. I ran it through my head, and came to the conclusion in the first paragraph, and I knew nothing about them at that point. People need to be more discerning. It screams late 90s IE scamware. Animals are trapped with trivial amounts of food. Be smarter than a dumb animal.

 

[mindless1]

Even if it didn't have the coupon agreements and lowball coupon offers, shenanigans with merchants, it should have been obvious that they had to be generating income one of, if not both of two ways, shifting themselves to the affiliate for the purchase commission payout, and/or selling your browsing and possibly also purchase data.

In the early days it might have still been a good option for those not initiated into deal finding, too lazy to look and always having their time wasted on sites that pretend to offer coupons too and just want you to click through to make them the last click-thru affiliate. Those days are over.

It doesn't even make sense. Somebody's losing in the scheme. That's the only way it can work. Why would anyone offer you a coupon when you're at the 'buy this shit now' page? The seller isn't interested in losing money.

Depends on the situation. I can usually navigate and compare prices on multiple merchant sites for same or similar items pretty quickly, so it isn't uncommon for me to visit, for example, Lowes, Home Depot, Ace Hardware, Amazon, and possibly others for a widget that costs more than a trivial amount. I'll put item in cart, see shipping charges if any, and if there is a coupon, apply it to see the bottom line price before deciding who has the best deal. Having a coupon to lower the price, can make me choose one trusted merchant over another. If that merchant then makes any profit at all, it was more profit than if the widget was bought elsewhere.

Playing devil's advocate, part of the problem is how many merchants have their affiliate program, website tracking set up. It shouldn't be last click-through gets the commission for the whole cart, but rather, the click-thru right before landing on the site, going to a product page or putting item in cart, then if you're the type of shopper to leave things in cart for a while, each product in cart can retain it's own, original/unchangeable, different affiliate association than other products in the cart.

One thing interesting to me is that the youtube channels spreading this revelation about Honey, aren't mentioning that they are sometimes doing the SAME THING! If you have items in cart from a merchant using the one affiliate per cart checkout, setup, and then click one of their (youtuber et al) affiliate links as the last affiliate link before the purchases are made, they can also take affiliate income away from someone else who was the original affiliate referrer for the rest, if not all the cart.

I am not defending Honey, OR these youtubers. Part of my income also comes from non-youtube affiliate referrals so both of these groups, AND myself, are all taking some referrals away from others that deserved them. Honey is simply doing it on a larger scale and not earning it. Well I suppose it may not be that simple since the rest of what they're accused of doing, seems even more shady and borderline illegal to me.

 

[Torn Mind]

LegalEagle is one talking head that I would not expect to do very well doing actual lawyering...or if he somehow does, it indicates he finally has a decent enough paralegal army to bother trying a federal class action instead of his typical personal injury business.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Legal Eagle video:

 

[MrSquished]

saw ads for this service a ton over the last couple years. Seemed intrusive. Avoided.

 

[Heartbreaker]

saw ads for this service a ton over the last couple years. Seemed intrusive. Avoided.

Yeah, I don't trust any of this kinds of browser extensions.

I'm most shocked that a big established company like PayPal would spend billions on this fraud based business model.

 

[Heartbreaker]

One of the founders of Honey, is now building another similar scam called Pie.

 

[Muse]

Interesting. Seen that extension in many Youtube sponsors and always felt it was probably too good to be true.

It looks for price drops. It's inconsistent. It works sometimes. It's a PITA in that stopping emails is a slog. The other stuff, finding coupons, I don't usually bother. Capital One does this too, which I mostly ignore but haven't disabled the extension (I'm still running Chrome). And there's Rakuten, I'm on that too. I get checks from them once in a while.

 

[Brainonska511]

It doesn't even make sense. Somebody's losing in the scheme. That's the only way it can work. Why would anyone offer you a coupon when you're at the 'buy this shit now' page? The seller isn't interested in losing money. The user isn't paying in $. I didn't watch the whole video, but it wouldn't surprise me if the user was paying some in personal data. Honey is a for profit company, so where's the profit? The profit is from the people getting fucked.

I've known of Honey for a good while, but I don't use coupons unless I already have a relationship with the vendor, and I don't use proprietary software. I ran it through my head, and came to the conclusion in the first paragraph, and I knew nothing about them at that point. People need to be more discerning. It screams late 90s IE scamware. Animals are trapped with trivial amounts of food. Be smarter than a dumb animal.

There are 4 parts:
1) Honey replaces affiliate links with itself as the "last click" to get purchase commissions when it's "searching for coupons"
2) Honey does #1 even when it tells you it found nothing
3) If Honey has some meager cashback offer, they also offer you that and they replace themselves as the "last click" affiliate
4) The coupon codes it's finding are limited: partnered stores can tell Honey to only offer a crappier coupon than what might exist in the wild

I don't think this is an issue of people needing to be more discerning. The consumer didn't see as much clear harm: they were getting the item they purchased, they may have been happy with any coupons or cashback offered (even if it was crappy). And the affiliates may not have realized the issue because it's very subtle in how it operates.

The losers are the people with affiliate links and potentially consumers.

 

[Brainonska511]

It looks for price drops. It's inconsistent. It works sometimes. It's a PITA in that stopping emails is a slog. The other stuff, finding coupons, I don't usually bother. Capital One does this too, which I mostly ignore but haven't disabled the extension (I'm still running Chrome). And there's Rakuten, I'm on that too. I get checks from them once in a while.

I don't trust most of those browser extensions.

I only have one installed, and it's in a browser I rarely use (Chrome): the AA Shopping one, and that was only because I was using it to get extra AA miles to cash in for an upcoming trip. It generally only gets used when I'm making an everyday purchase, like ordering something from Chewy for my dog.

 

[lxskllr]

I don't think this is an issue of people needing to be more discerning. The consumer didn't see as much clear harm: they were getting the item they purchased, they may have been happy with any coupons or cashback offered (even if it was crappy). And the affiliates may not have realized the issue because it's very subtle in how it operates.

I understand how it works. I also understand how it can't work, and there should be spinning red lights and a red alert siren when someone's asking themselves "Is this software I should install?". It's definitely an issue of people not being discerning.

 

[Brainonska511]

I understand how it works. I also understand how it can't work, and there should be spinning red lights and a red alert siren when someone's asking themselves "Is this software I should install?". It's definitely an issue of people not being discerning.

Given the stupidity of the median user, and the opaqueness of how this was operating, I don't think it's necessarily the fault of the users. They saw an opportunity to save money, and this thing did that for them. I'm not sure many people were thinking about the nature of affiliate links and how Honey was interjecting themselves to take that commission and share some of it with the consumer.

We shouldn't excuse bad corporate behavior because they were taking advantage of ignorant users.

 

[lxskllr]

I don't excuse bad corporate behavior. They shouldn't exist because people are smart enough not to install their shitware. People need to always be asking "How is this paid for?". Outside(rarely inside) the free software system, somebody's paying. My immediate assumption is I'm paying with my personal data. In this case, it was getting taken from others. Companies don't make software cause they're cool guys, they're making money, or at least trying to. If you don't understand how they're making money, it's better to just stay away.

All for some trivial discount... A blob of peanutbutter on a bait pan...

 

[Muse]

I pretty much stopped clicking on those popups that say they will look for discount coupons because you spend 10-15 seconds while it presumably checks for coupons and in my experience finds nothing and tells me I already have the best deal. So, I don't take the bait. According to the OP video if you do search for coupons Honey (or whatever agency promised to look) snags the commission, stealing it from any other promoter who would have gotten it, REGARDLESS of whether Honey found a used/useful coupon!

However, Honey will do a Price Drop thing if you ask it to, and I get those principally at Amazon's website. It will say something like this is a good time to buy because the current price has dropped from prevailing level. Punch in and it shows you (often clumsily or strangely) what the price has been for (you choose) the last 30 days (the default) or 60, 90 or 120 days (the one I always go to). I think this mostly works. Or Honey will show that the current price has gone up. Often the price Honey shows for current (in an email or at Amazon.com) isn't what Amazon quotes. WTF. It's really YMMV. I can ask Honey to watch for a price drop and email me if one occurs. I get these daily. I have to check by opening the email to find out what item the email was about. Usually it's for something I have no interest in anymore. Those are a PITA because to get the item off your list is a bitch. Also, and just as bad, when you punch the link in the email I usually find that the item is selling for much more than the email asserted it is selling for. Did the price shoot up in the interim? Presumably, but WTF knows?

Usually I just ignore an email about an item I no longer have an interest in rather than try to get the item off my list. However, I've gotten a lot of good deals using the Droplist feature. Have I been deceived? Sometimes? Maybe, but mostly I think that feature works pretty much as you think. Even when removing an item from my droplist I think I still get the emails. It's kind of crazy.

When I go to a site and consider a buy, I often get 3 popups offering benefits:

Honey
Capital One
Rakuten

I pick Rakuten and ignore or X-out the others. I make sure Rakuten is Enabled, meaning it has precedence, so will get my % cash back. Like I said, Rakuten does accumulate points and sends me a check occasionally. You need to Activate it with a click. Before doing so it indicates a percentage benefit. At Ebay it's 1%, at other sites usually more, sometimes in double figures. But IIRC it often says "Up to X%" so you're kind of in the dark, and some sites it depends on the category of item you purchase, e.g. Walmart where my Rakuten popup includes a button that says [Activate up to 4% Cash Back].

 

[Torn Mind]

I use services like Befrugal or Mr rebates for a small cashback. Or just slickdeals if I want actual...deals.

I know dealzon died off a few years back. Fatwallet even earlier. Sometimes these deal sites run out of racetrack.

Honey got ads from fairly trusted youtubers, so there is persuasion going on beyond just being presented with it randomly.

 

[Muse]

Didn't dirtbag Theil start that whole mess of a company?

Along with Elon.

 

[nakedfrog]

I don't excuse bad corporate behavior. They shouldn't exist because people are smart enough not to install their shitware. People need to always be asking "How is this paid for?". Outside(rarely inside) the free software system, somebody's paying. My immediate assumption is I'm paying with my personal data. In this case, it was getting taken from others. Companies don't make software cause they're cool guys, they're making money, or at least trying to. If you don't understand how they're making money, it's better to just stay away.

All for some trivial discount... A blob of peanutbutter on a bait pan...

I think you give too much credit to the average person.

 

[lxskllr]

I don't give any credit to the average person. They were failed by school and society. Doesn't change the fact you should understand the tools you operate. This is anti scam 101. It requires no advanced knowledge, and is based on the ancient principle of "If it seems to good to be true, it probably isn't"

 

[Brainonska511]

I don't give any credit to the average person. They were failed by school and society. Doesn't change the fact you should understand the tools you operate. This is anti scam 101. It requires no advanced knowledge, and is based on the ancient principle of "If it seems to good to be true, it probably isn't"

But Honey was somewhat doing what it said for consumers: finding coupon codes and applying them (even if it was doing a bad job or partnering with some businesses to limit the distribution of good codes). They were likely making the bulk of money by stealing on the affiliate referral side. I don't see how the typical consumer would identify that or understand what was going on there. It wasn't necessarily making the consumer the product in a way that would turn off the consumer.

I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect people to really understand the ins and outs of everything they are using in the modern age. Are you expecting everyone to read through pages of TOS and EULAs on everything they use too?

 

[lxskllr]

I expect people to wing it, and not be tricked by baubles. I didn't read the Honey TOS cause the whole thing smelled funny. There wasn't any point, because basic logic eliminated it. I didn't read the google TOS either, but everyone knows they're data mining the shit out of everything, cause how else can you pay for the massive storage and bandwidth required to host their services?

 

[nakedfrog]

I expect people to wing it, and not be tricked by baubles. I didn't read the Honey TOS cause the whole thing smelled funny. There wasn't any point, because basic logic eliminated it. I didn't read the google TOS either, but everyone knows they're data mining the shit out of everything, cause how else can you pay for the massive storage and bandwidth required to host their services?

And this is why I say you're giving the average person credit, because you expect them to not be tricked by baubles, or to care how things are being paid for.
I wouldn't be seeing ads about "hey, don't fall for gift card scams, okay?" if the average person was who you expect them to be.