Honey’s deal-hunting browser extension is accused of ripping off customers and YouTubers

The PayPal Honey browser hold is, successful theory, a useful mode to find amended deals connected products portion you’re buying online. But successful a video published this weekend, YouTuber MegaLag claims the hold is simply a “scam” and that Honey has been “stealing wealth from influencers, including the precise ones they paid to beforehand their product.”

Honey works by popping up an connection to find coupon codes for you portion you’re checking retired successful an online shop. But arsenic MegaLag notes, it often fails to find a code, oregon offers a Honey-branded one, adjacent if a elemental net hunt volition screen thing better. The Honey website’s pitch is that it volition “find each moving promo codification connected the internet.” But according to MegaLag’s video, ignoring amended deals is simply a diagnostic of Honey’s partnerships with its retail clients.

MegaLag besides says Honey volition hijack affiliate gross from influencers. According to MegaLag, if you click connected an affiliate nexus from an influencer, Honey volition past swap successful its ain tracking nexus erstwhile you interact with its woody pop-up astatine check-out. That’s careless of whether Honey recovered you a coupon oregon not, and it results successful Honey getting the recognition for the sale, alternatively than the YouTuber oregon website whose nexus led you there.

Paypal VP of firm communications Josh Criscoe said successful an email to The Verge that “Honey follows manufacture rules and practices, including last-click attribution.”

MegaLag isn’t the archetypal to marque specified claims. A 2021 Twitter post advises utilizing Honey’s discount codes successful a antithetic browser to debar it taking the affiliate credit. A Linus Media Group worker besides explained successful a 2022 forum reply that Linus Tech Tips dropped Honey arsenic a sponsor implicit its affiliate nexus practices.

Honey’s convenience has resulted successful the hold being recommended widely, including successful astir 5,000 Honey-sponsored videos crossed astir 1,000 YouTube channels, according to MegaLag. We’ve adjacent recommended it present astatine The Verge; now we bash not.

Here is Criscoe’s afloat statement: