How Honey Scammed Everyone on YouTube
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ธ.ค. 2024
- In this video I discuss the honey affiliate link and coupon code scam that was exposed by MegaLag
/ @megalag
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This is totally unacceptable. I will discuss this with my BetterHelp therapist as soon as i get back from visiting my plot of land in Scotland!
Wistfully staring at your fractional share of a piece of art as you ponder the magnitude of this situation
i hope this comment abaut BetterHelp is ironic
@oskark312 don't worry it bleeds irony.
@oskark312 it is
safe trip home, Lord Hectorchkomba7670!
I'm disappointed to find out Honey isn't a Honeypot.
true
Five Eyes must be affiliated ain’t no way!!!!
L(MAOZEDONG) yea
Depends on the perspective, I guess.
Peter The Eal.
"And your really only going to hear about it if the sponsor is scamming the creators as well" this hits hard
Its sooooo true
So tired of all these scumbags, they're so phony on top of everything. Just blocked most of their channels.
@@I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERS same here
they are not really victims here, they get the sponsorship money.
you're
Yup, the only reason youtubers call it "biggest scandal on yt" is because it hits their wallets, they will shill any garbage service for a pouch of silvers. Trust no one
the thing its scam everyone involve in the chain and even ppl who aren't, it some point this no scam it does to theft/hack
Nearly 10 years ago, "free speech" TH-camrs promoted an app designed to train an algorithm to be more effective at censorship. It was called Candid.
I don't know if this is the biggest scandal but clearly this is a major scam from Paypal who clearly stole commissions from hundreds of youtubers.
They should definitely be sued with a class action lawsuit
Honey is a scam, brought to you by RAID: SHADOW LEGENDS! 🤣
@@Melpheos1er *sad violin noises*
this is why use sponsor block I had no idea honey was running this scam.
Spreading the good word of sponsorblock
Honey has been sponsors for YT channel for yeeeears. You have definitely heard of them.
@@muizzsiddique oh I heard of them I just had no idea they were running a scam because I was using sponsorblock for so long.
I didn't even knew what "Honey" meant in this context lol. Sometimes, ignorance is indeed a bliss.
Great! And now sponsor block has your data?
Never use or buy ANYTHING peddled by TH-camrs
Back in the day, radio presenters pushing Herb-A-Life relentlessly, and later got in zero trouble for pushing the scam weight loss pills for years. Trust very few people.
how about Brilliant sponsor ads
@@SpittingBritTeaEarlGreybrilliant was actually good when I used it a while back, but I'm not sure if it's different now, worth researching if you're actually wondering
I would change that to „never use or buy anything without deeper research“
@@SpittingBritTeaEarlGreythat’s just paying for educational youtube videos
I love how suddenly everyone is talking about Honey after MegaLag’s video. It’s bringing proper awareness to this Honey THEFT scam, and the multiple voices canNOT be silenced!
I’d love to see some proper justice play out!
I thought it was based, fuck influencers
yea I've been a subscriber to megalag for a year now and i love his videos and this one is HUGE .
It probably enraged a lot of youtubers to discover one of their sponsors was stealing their commissions.
Yeah. I'm hoping the video doesn't get taken down, just in case, I downloaded it and this one too.
Paypal needs to get fucked.
If it's free, you are the product.
Buddy, paid products also make you the product.
There is no winning. You just have be be smart enough to do your due diligence.
@@mohammedgodertrue indeed.
Ublock Origin 😅
I tried explaining this to my dad after seeing his Android phone full of adware and shady apps. SMH.
looks like u r a product too cuz u use youtube???
Ngl Paypal doing the ol' switcharoo with affiliate links is so cartoonishly diabolical I can't help but chuckle, makes me wonder how much they've raked in through that method alone.
Love the wording
I am happy that you credited megalag in the description but you realllyyy should've said it in the video as well at the start!
agreed, or make a pinned comment crediting the original video and the channel it's from
Yep, I got to the original video becase somebody just posted the reference in their announcements. Suddenly the hell broke loose and I have seen at least 4 others who jumped on the bandwagon to benefit from years of investigation by the guy. And it is jut the beginning. I wonder when will somebkdy pick up on misleading claims of deleteme and similar services. It is also being pushed down my throat by almost every talking head that accepts sponsors. Annoying.
@@HeidenLam it was obviously not legit and i did aff links fulltime for big money in 2011...
This gave me an idea to just become my own affiliate and create a plugin that hijack's everyone else's affiliate links with my own.
I'm nearly certain that's how honey originated.
That's no different then getting a coupon code that wasn't given to you, so long you actually do what's advertised and save people money (which honey does) then I don't see a problem with it.
@@jamesinnitbruv I mean just for my own purposes, but I could probably release a plugin so anyone can replace all affiliate links with their own.
New Villain of TH-cam (red circles and arrow, acrylic paint filter, white eyes)
people did that long ago in 2010.. i did it fulltime actually on a popular tech forum
This is basically just a retelling of MegaLag's video. But at least it's shorter than the original and it's not named "The Honey Situation is Insane"!
Also thumbnail is without a face doing stupid fake expressions, no red circles and no arrows. Basically, one of the best tech news channel on YT, with occasional farming advice video.
PS: Hello, fellow Blarghonite.
>hello fellow redditnite
@@RmFrZQ Get DeArrow, I had no idea how cancerous was the original thumbnail and title before seeing it in this video.
@@RmFrZQ Agreed. Plus this complaint, retelling - that's how the news work, duh
so what. I don't know who you are talking about. And I'm subscribed to this channel. Mental Outlaw wins, MegaLax lost. Get over it.
This is how all voucher/coupon websites have worked since the invention of the cookie. It is crazy how many people are outraged by Honey and not the whole affiliate industry. This must be a US thing
you're probably right
Personally i just never heard about these types of scams/ fraud going around
Sounds like.
To elaborate, I am amazed how so many supposedly-expert tech TH-camrs seem surprised, when this is how affiliate extensions/toolbars/plugins have always worked. They can't do a Honey sponsorship, get paid $3 per install, and then expect to get paid again for Amazon affiliate links in the video descriptions. And what about other creators? Well tough - there can only be one referrer and that's how the affiliate business works. If you don't like it, make your own merch or ask for donations through Patreon or wherever.
In the tier list of TH-cam sponsorship shadiness, I place Honey in D tier. The CSGO gambling sites go in A tier.
@@terrsus at worst it is dark patterns. There are plenty of real scams and fraud in TH-cam sponsor spots. PayPal is an evil, immoral company that needs to be broken up, but this is the least of their crimes.
I was hoping you would talk some technical stuff about how they swap the cookie. MegaLag showed Honey opening up a sneaky Chrome tab, that's something I haven't seen before.
That's straight up a malware like behavior, and usually it could instantly trigger the virus protection
This is really just a summary of megalag's video right down to the analogy and examples they used. You should have made that clear in the video not just a note in the description
+1
Honestly I'm a little annoyed at this situation, not because Honey is a scam, scams and scammers are a part of life. It's the fact that TH-camrs will reccomend their viewers all this shady shit, "there's no catch!", "it protects your privacy/protects you from hackers!" they will lie to people for money, and sleep soundly at night, but as soon as THEY get fucked over it's something we're all meant to care about.
I learned my lesson several years back concerning influencer-marketed products. I bought RayCons once. I took them out of the box, put them in my ears, and I didn't even get 30 seconds through the song I used to test their fidelity. I put them back in the box and sent them back. The sonic equivalent of breathing swamp gas. I don't know how people can rock those things. You can get 1000x better sounding full-wireless for the same price. RayCON indeed.
Yeap, Ridge wallet is also super overpriced for what it does
If it's promoted by big influencers, it's a scam.
facts
You ain't lying
@@SporianSummit No it is not.. get a reality check
@@njpme yes.. they are.. thats outright paranoia 100%
Very bad immature take
While vpns don’t exactly protect you from advertisers and hackers, they do protect you from your isp when you torrent stuff.
Yes they have their uses, just their necessity is often overblown
Also for getting around country wide blocks or accessing streaming services that are geo locked
@@jasonoutman420 accessing streaming services that are geo locked is legally equivalent to torrents anyway.
Tried to use honey once 10 years or something g like that ago and it didn’t find any coupons so I said this is stupid and deleted. Didn’t know how much of a bullet I dodged there
Yeah same, I also noticed the coupons that it was supposedly trying seemed randomly generated and fake but I had no idea how big of a scam it all was.
Lol real, and it has this goofy animation of "cracking" the codes
Honey is a sneaky with this one, not gonna lie.
I did download it to try it out, but it didn't work. I think I've tried it twice maybe? I couldn't find any of the coupons I said to myself "fuck this, it doesn't work anyway", then uninstalled it.
I'm still baffled LTT didn't do an expose, but just stayed quiet.
LTT are at their lowest point in regards to their reputation. They can't afford another public fuckup like this. It's messed up but I wouldn't call their behavior baffling, it's expected at this point. Just avoid them entirely and encourage everyone you know to do the same.
They are not exactly good at apologizing.
there are upsides of living under a rock and not trusting sponsorships bulshit :)
LTT not saying a word after they found out is disgusting. Their mods on the LTT forum are banning anyone who calls them out too.
It’s probably part of their deal with Honey that they can’t say anything to be honest
@@omduggineniI find it hard to give LTT the benefit of the doubt these days.
@@omduggineniwdym they can't?
Stopped watching LTT ages ago, I think around the time some scandal happened
Everyone knew Honey was pretty much guaranteed to be mining shopping data, it doesn't take a genius to figure out it was a scam, so you're right that we should be disappointed in creators for promoting it (especially tech channels who should know better). But the extent of the scam is definitely surprising.
I think the shittier part of the affiliate hijacking is it probably didn't even really hurt the people promoting honey as much as the smaller creators who weren't promoting honey, because audience overlap and all. Honey stole basically all affiliate links, even if they didn't have coupons to give or anything else. All without informing the user they were doing this, or giving you lesser coupons. And probably building a gigantic tracking database. And, apparently, giving out coupons that weren't actually supposed to be public in some cases, from the sounds of it.
hey, that last bit is pretty cool
I called this back in 2018. Nobody listened and my tweet was largely ignored. On the record, I don't trust Ryan Hudson or his companies. I'm highly skeptical of the ad blocker Pie. Maybe you could look into this one?
Upper Echolon did that yesterday already. At least he added something new to the discussion unlike this video which is only a lame rehash of MegaLag's investigation. Very disappointed!
Honey Shills on their podcasts: "Honey! It's free! You're stupid if you don't get it"
I guess I'm stupid then.
They criticized Mr Beast for his "subscribe for a cookie/car" and here is a literal insult
Shocking revelation! Megacorporations don't have your best interest in mind.
Neither does the government, politicians or 99% of strangers. Welcome to reality.
"But people need coupons to survive"
Attempt # 9.
Trying to get your attention to check your microphone because your S letters sound like a sword cutting something.
tihi can't unhear it now
I shouldnt have read this 😢 now I cant unhear it ahhhhh
Oh god i hate when that happens in videos
It sounds like a knife cutting paper and I hate that you brought attention to it cause now it's all I hear
I haven't even watched it, after watching the original content yesterday. I am here just for the comments, not expecting to hear anything new here LOL.
It has nothing to do with the video, but I love how 0:27 the coffee is spilled and he just keeps smiling and pretend it didn't happen. Super introvert energy.
it do be like that huh
Your point stands, but isn't that what the tiny little plates those teacups come on are for? Actual question lol I don't coffee 😅
@@skootz24 kinda! But generally, it's the drinker who spills some coffee while sipping, and not the barista lol
i love connecting to sites that start with htps
(i wasn't gonna say it, but when i saw an off-topic comment referring to the same spot in the video, i couldn't help it 😭)
Man I feel bad for some of the people who promoted this. The one guy Noodle actually looked through the terms to make.sure they kept things private, was one of the earliest people who got sponsored, and they're not a tech guy at all, they'd never have been able to know this was a thing. Like LTT and others like em are scum for not telling people about this, but the smaller content creators who survived because of the sponsorships don't deserve this or any hate.
but the problem is, where does the money come from that they are sponsoring their shills with?
@@ElusiveEelBro… freaking PayPal owns honey.
I think the affiliates that hid discount codes are the most idiotic of individuals, because if you don't want people to get a better discount then...just don't offer that discount? Don't make it a code that would work in the first place, and BOOM, no partnership needed, they're actively hurting themselves. I know they have some unethical logic, but I still want to slam them for their behavior.
Your data is their prize, don't forget! You are just a milking cow here.
As a rule, I never click on something someone is telling me that I need. Especially so called influencers. And I also never click affiliate links of TH-camrs.
Somehow, Honey was able scam everyone on the chain:
Product Affiliates (having 100% of commissions stolen by PayPal)
Product Vendors (although not really a scam, but end users pay lower prices for products)
End Users (probably getting spied on and not really getting the best prices)
8:45 This is scummy behavior, that's why I use the old fashion Firefox.
Unfortunately, Mozilla isn't long for this world. A court ruled against Chrome paying mozilla to be their primary search engine, which is 80% of their revenue, and the rest of the money is being divvied up amongst Mozilla's dwindling executive board. It's crazy what happens when companies focus more on activism than their primary product.
brave is one of the scummiest browsers out there and will constantly lie to consumers
I recommend u try librewolf
I don't get why Brave is so popular anyway
@mangu4558 librewolf is better
Tbh all public coupons are sketchy. Why give discounts openly? Coupons shold be directed to repeat customers.
Or to lure new customers in. Business is not that easy. Utilities have been doing it since I remmember: getting a better deal to switch while lasting customers got rise in price after the cheap period ended. One had to keep hopping from provider to provider to save. Internet, sim deals, bank accounts... and your credit score suffers, but those who understant, those know you are just being savvy. And some will appreciate that.
"Everyone" Me a person on youtube. Hold up!
Are you imply I believed for even the slightest of moment a for profit entity was going to give me a "Deal" as their expense? Come on that's just insulting! Lol, joking because it takes one hell of a sucker to think something is free from a corporation, no cost is not the same as free.
TH-camrs and podcasters are never held responsible for promoting these scams.
yeah they are lmao
In this case, they shouldn't be. The influencers that promoted Honey were not made aware that it was performing shady stuff until recently. The only team that was aware of it years ago was LTT and they just stopped working with honey and withheld the information and didn't sound the alarm about it.
Copy paste comment that doesn't spply here.
@@_therax LTT should definitly face backlash, for their lack of talking about it ages ago, and not providing good answer to megalag when he asked. I say this as a fan of LTT aswell
@@CentreMetre I agree. LTT has been getting a lot of heat recently lmao. i wonder what issue's going to pop up about them in the coming future.
Another false advertising thing people seem to ignore is the claim that "crypto is untraceable."
It's the most traceable thing in existence, literally every transaction is logged.
I always had the mind set of " when something is too good to be true then there is twist "
The internet is place to make profit out of anything from the user : time , info , money even a mindset
And the more i send in the internet the more i see it
i called it back when people were shilling for it like crazy a few years ago or something, and now this ends up happening.
just like the legend from dragon ball had said: *CALLED IT.*
Lmao when they started ads on this years ago I thought to myself "cookies are making them money" Yeah turns out it's way worse than that. They're stealing from other cookie providers. As a cookieman, I wholeheartedly deny this as a legitimate business model.
Seen lot of thumbnails floating around on recommendation. I only watch Mental Outlaw's take. Shorter and concise.
Honey scamming before GTA 6 is nasty work
At first I found all this GTA6 stuff annoying, but I'll admit it's starting to make me laugh. 😆
Same@@raumfahreturschutze
Stop it. Get some help.
It seems like it's a seller / creators problem. Not a user problem.
If it saved a user even $1, then it's done it's job.
We, the majority, don't care where the commission goes.
I have no doubt they're collecting data on spending habits, but so is every other tech company.
True, but the title does say that Honey is scamming TH-camrs (their partners) not people purchasing products.
But they don't offer what they say they offer (the best coupons).
It deliberately lies to it's user base that they get the best offer possible so that they don't go around finding a better deal themselves. How is that not a user problem?
9:00 100% my point,the youtubers who promoted honey didn't even have the decency to look at their FAQ let alone background research which reveals a lot about how much do they care about their audience.
I've pretty much just stopped listening to anything promoted on TH-cam. In my experience, the best products never have loud affiliate programs.
You should have mentioned Megalag in the video itself rather than a small mention in the description that most people wouldn't read
Given that your entire video is solely just repeating his work
that description wasn’t even there last night.
You really should have given the guy who broke the story credit before rereading his script for your own youtube video
I don't think you'd appreciate it if someone did that to you
Read the description fam.
@@Anonymous4045 ..and self admission makes this okay? is your brain working?
Just never use or buy anything, ever.
Make your own stuff.
Find people that make their own stuff near you.
Give eachother stuff for free.
Escape the need for money.
If only there was a mantra you could memorise that would guide you away from these kind of cons, but That Would Be Too Good To Be True
sounds like the perfect time for someone to step up and create an open-source, non-scam honey, which actually works
It would've been nice if you also mention the MegaLag video and give him some credit!
it's obviously not fully their fault, but I think this should be a wakeup call for youtubers to not promote just anybody who pays them to their massive audiences.
I like your videos but this one felt way too much copy paste from MagaLag’s video (also compared to other TH-camrs who have since made their own videos). Only the thumbnail was shown but no real attribution imo
as what others said, you should've given megalag credit within the video itself, preferably at the start since he was the one who publicised it (Ik there was a comment and I'm quite sure he gave credit to it within his video which led mega to discover this scam anyways)
Thank you for the video Señor Outlaw.
9:58 I figure this point is appreciated and intuitive to anyone with more than three brain cells to rub together. But this is why I have respect for SsethTzeentach. He low keys talks smack against all his sponsors in his ad reads, and has outright said in unsponsored videos to never believe any of his ad reads, as 'they're all lies and I'm just milking sponsors for money'. lol What a lad!
This is exactly the reason why i'm against affiliate in general.
I wont click these links, i'll just go to the site myself without an affiliate link and also clear my cookies.
I am honestly shocked that people didn't understand this to be how honey operated. Did everyone really think they were just trying to get you the best deal? It exists to make money.
Sure i have already watched 5 videos about this, but this ones made by mental outlaw, its special.
Have you watched the original, on which everyone else just parasites? I admire your patientce. I gave up after the third (two in addition to the original).
For me, it was Bedhead Bernie's tweet from years back that made me avoid using Honey.
I love you 4 eye cat man, in the video itself you never gave attribution to the original investigator. You even used the thumbnail and screenshots from the original video itself. It would be nice if you at least linked to the original video in the description instead of just a footnote saying their name
"...and you're really only going to hear about it, if the sponsor is scamming the creators as well"
Yup. And that's why I'm subbed.
I swear I already saw this video from another creator
How are you any different to honey, literally taking megalag content as your own. Next time try just directing people to his vid instead.
How about crediting the person that did the excellent investigative piece exposing honey! U seem to re-sent as you realised this when u clearly saw megalags video, Ure also echoing what penguin and Austin said, Alton they clearly from the outset reference and acknowledge megalag investigative expose
They are wild damn
i tried honey many years back, it never even provided coupons in my case, and UI is bad too
Dude this is why I follow you! And I got to know about this new from a random channel and not yours
TH-camrs only talk about other TH-camrs . . . It’s how they keep the gears turning
When I first heard about honey I installed it for about a week, it had no codes or literal 2 year old ones that obviously didnt work
(p)Honey
If only we listened to that rando on the LTT forums 4 years ago. this would've been over 4 years ago
I had honey and I hope there's a class action lawsuit so I can get my 7 dollars, I feel really stupid especially since I grew up in the XP era, I figured it was just collecting ad info or something but no they modified your cookies which is really shady, I forgot viruses used to target those
This was such an eye-opener! I’ve always been a bit skeptical about these influencer promotions, but hearing all the details about Honey and how they’re exploiting both consumers and creators really made me rethink everything. It’s crazy how they’re profiting off of data and even hijacking affiliate links. Thanks for breaking this down so clearly. It's a shame that so many people, including influencers, get caught up in these schemes. Definitely need to stay more cautious online!
Its not crazy. More common than you realize.
i was literally like 14-15 when i first saw honey ads and i still felt there was something fishy about it like i thought "how are they making money without ads or purchases?"
It would be nice if you linked the video that discussed this problem before you. At least including that you used their thumbnail in this video.
Yes
Kenny is a legend. So underrated.
I just bought a jar of honey paying with cash, and I'm pretty sure none of the bees will even see a penny of it, but luckily they are all asleep this time of the year.
Oh no, what do I do with all these ball washing products I bought from some reviewer? I don't want my boys to melt.
As an experienced programmer, I found most of the programming channels don’t know what they are doing, and I extrapolated that all TH-camrs are bull shitting all the time. That why I never fell for non of the ads
none of this is new, why are people now acting surprised? how else did people think they made money?
Did you get to the part about affiliate links yet?
I remember trying Honey back in 2016. It took about a day for me to notice that it wasn't providing any value, at which point I uninstalled the extension. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
I knew it was happening, I just thought it was how they were monetized. I did not notice the poaching of affiliate links.
breaking news: free product which has large advertising campaign turns out to be bad
So is JLCPCB a scam too? I've had nothing but a great experience ordering my PCB designs from them, I even started a small business selling some guitar pedals in my local venues lol
I don't think so, but maybe overpriced?
Its strange you didnt mention the source in video. I see link in description, but from video its kind of presented like its your findings.
No offense, but you are kind of stealing megalag's video word by word without mentioning him a single time in your video
yea that’s what I said! pretty infuriating
Even if it wasn't a scam, using coupons has always been such a small benefit that even if I used one on every single purchase I made I might save enough per year to pay off a speeding ticket
The most scummy thing is Honey advertises "partnerships" where the company can limit the sale percentage. For example a company partners with Honey, Then the company tells Honey "do not show discounts above 10%" So there might be coupons for 15% or 20% off but those coupons won't show on Honey, even if you try to manually add the code.
Absolutely diabolical, like a Saturday Morning cartoon villain.
A shitty new world for us to explore. Thought it was scamy and am glad for the verification. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Thank you for afirming my intuition that all sponsors that youtubers shill are scams : )
Advertising something through TH-camrs is the best way to discredit your product.
The constant influencing, from the influencers, have been off the charts this year.
5:27 Well, that explains why not a single coupon on honey works
Still waiting for the Rocket Money video. I don’t trust them whatsoever.
Markiplier said he didnt trust honey years ago.
Generally reputable companies don't have to resort to having TH-camrs shill their products