PayPal (Honey) in trouble?

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,742]

YouTube channel spells out the shady practices from the Honey browser extension that is “sold” to find you the best coupon deal on the internet. If you have the honey browser extension installed, the following may be happening to you.

1. if you followed an affiliate link from someone who actually convinced you to buy, Honey automatically takes the affiliate deal so they receive the affiliate commission. Even when there isn’t a coupon available, Honey poaches the affiliate commission. (This doesn’t appear to directly impact the buyer)
2. Honey previously advertised as finding you, the buyer, the best coupon on the internet. This claim was quietly removed when some realized that the stores, via a contract with Honey, can prevent large promo codes from being applied by Honey. Bigger kickback to Honey. Honey no longer actively makes the “best discount coupon available” claim. This change was after a Better Business Bureau investigation. But thousands of older but active, sponsored YouTube videos still state this fraudulent claim.
3. Honey has a reward program that actually gives them more avenues to poach a sales commission while sharing an extremely small kickback with the buyer. Once again you could have saved more NOT using Honey.

feels like this opens PayPal to some class action lawsuits from affiliate marketers and consumers. FYI, PayPal bought them in 2019 for $4B.

 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,742]

Someone might see this story and think, screw Mr. Beast for losing some affiliate sales revenue since he already earns millions and Honey paid him to promote Honey in the first place. But Honey appears to harm others who have zero connection.

say Surly runs an affiliate promotion for NordVPN or a Longhorn appparel store to help offset the website costs. You click the link here and buy from the online store. Your Honey browser extension applies another promo code, or maybe just confirms you have the best deal. For that action, Honey snakes the commission from Surly, who is ignorant that the purchase even occurred. Surly is out $20.

I also don’t think honey is alone in this practice, they’re just the largest company.

[Blotto 24,044]

Define "trouble." My guess is they will pay a trivial fine and probably settle for a trivial amount in a class action lawsuit, and admit no wrong doing in the process. Lawyers will benefit and thats about it.

[Parliament 14,618]

Pro tip: don’t by stuff online.  Problem solved.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10,810]

Incredible. Yeah, definitely class action at minimum. Government action and fines highly likely as well.  Some of their largest influencer/promoters could easily get caught up in it as well as they sound like a couple figured it out and worked out some kind of "deal" to not blow the lid off it. Linus TT obviously knew and my guess is got paid to keep it quiet.

Edited Monday at 07:59 PM by MonkeyDoughnut

[Captainant 28,596]

48 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Incredible. Yeah, definitely class action at minimum. Government action and fines highly likely as well.  Some of their largest influencer/promoters could easily get caught up in it as well as they sound like a couple figured it out and worked out some kind of "deal" to not blow the lid off it. Linus TT obviously knew and my guess is got paid to keep it quiet.

Tell me you didn't watch the video without telling me lol. LTT was the first example of a YouTuber getting their commission revenue stolen by Honey, which I doubt they'd be cool with

What's your reason for feeling so strongly that people were getting paid to stay quiet? That doesn't make any sense to me, and LTT in particular dropped them as a sponsor a while ago. They're not the best ran company, though 

Edited Monday at 08:44 PM by Captainant

[MonkeyDoughnut 10,810]

17 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Tell me you didn't watch the video without telling me lol. LTT was the first example of a YouTuber getting their commission revenue stolen by Honey, which I doubt they'd be cool with

What's your reason for feeling so strongly that people were getting paid to stay quiet? That doesn't make any sense to me, and LTT in particular dropped them as a sponsor a while ago. They're not the best ran company, though 

So you think LTT was cool with their subscribers getting scammed? It wasn't just the affiliate's money getting taken. It's not a strong belief they were paid as much as the only thing that makes sense. They knew, they dropped promoting honey... but didn't hide old support videos, etc and kept quiet on a tech related scam that was still happening to others by a large/known company. Seems pretty shady for a tech influence group to hide such a thing.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,742]

It’s very possible that an influencer taking money from a sponsor can include a provision that they can never criticize the sponsor. Now perhaps that can be fought in court but most like to avoid legal problems.

i feel most for influencers or website owners who were not paid by Honey but are kept from earning with their affiliate links.

[CooterBrown 18,289]

The best one of these is the Capital One shopping app. I don’t understand the deals it gives. By using the browser extension to buy something, it’s usually 10+% cash back. i used it last week to get 30% cash back from one online retailer. They’re not marking up the prices so I guess their data shows most people don’t pay off their credit cards so even at 30% cash back, they still make money.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,742]

2 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

The best one of these is the Capital One shopping app. I don’t understand the deals it gives. By using the browser extension to buy something, it’s usually 10+% cash back. i used it last week to get 30% cash back from one online retailer. They’re not marking up the prices so I guess their data shows most people don’t pay off their credit cards so even at 30% cash back, they still make money.

Or the store is reimbursing capital one who may be giving some or all of the rebate to you.

[UT_OB1 2,266]

2 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

The best one of these is the Capital One shopping app. I don’t understand the deals it gives. By using the browser extension to buy something, it’s usually 10+% cash back. i used it last week to get 30% cash back from one online retailer. They’re not marking up the prices so I guess their data shows most people don’t pay off their credit cards so even at 30% cash back, they still make money.

I’m xenial, but my wife says I have the mind of a boomer. So explain to me these browser add on things.. Are they for everything?  Different browser add on for different stores / shopping category?  Are any worth using?  I mean 30% cash back seems ridiculous. I don’t trust that and feel like there has to be a catch 

[RDCanecutter 26,921]

7 hours ago, Parliament said:

Pro tip: don’t by stuff online.  Problem solved.

Maybe serious, maybe joking, but many's the time that by just going to a physical store, talking to whoever works there, I'll get hold of some perfectly good item they have squirreled away that they no longer advertise, but it works fine, and they make up a discount for it right there.

Besides, sitting on one's pimply ass browsing screens is just gross. Unless it's Surly.

[CooterBrown 18,289]

I’m xenial, but my wife says I have the mind of a boomer. So explain to me these browser add on things.. Are they for everything?  Different browser add on for different stores / shopping category?  Are any worth using?  I mean 30% cash back seems ridiculous. I don’t trust that and feel like there has to be a catch 

For the capital one add in, after you install it, you do nothing. If you are on Amazon or another retailer and add something to your cart, it’ll pop up and tell you if it’s cheaper (including shipping) or if there is cash back to buy through their app instead.

[Blotto 24,044]

Its funny, I will use the capitalone shopping portal to check if there are any good discounts when I know I will be making decent size purchases or a lot of travel bookings, but I have refused to install their browser extension for data tracking reasons. Which is stupid because google probably knows when I take a shit every morning.

The one thing I have noticed is that actually receiving the cashback is sporadic and its too much of a pain in the ass to argue for it. An example would be when I take 3-4 week road trips, I often will book my lodging throughout the trip on the same day or the day before using priceline and/or VRBO, both of which offer cashback at various levels through capitalone. only about half the time does the credit hit. I am just too lazy to document and try to recoup it. And occasionally after 6 months I will get notification of a credit for that trip. Its not the worlds most foolproof system they set up.