The Biggest Scam In YouTube History

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The Biggest Scam In YouTube History

Honey extension exposed as the biggest scam in YouTube history.

Honey, which is owned by PayPal, is a popular browser extension with 19 million users on Chrome alone but the shopping tool is being accused of some seriously shady practices, including keeping users away from the lowest online prices and blocking creator affiliate links to deprive them of revenue. 

PayPal acquired Honey for a staggering $4 billion in January 2020. At the time of the purchase, PayPal said the tool served about 17 million monthly active users and helped consumers save about $1 billion annually.

According to YouTube's MegaLag, Honey has sponsored around 5,000 YouTube videos across more than 1,000 different channels that have accumulated a combined 7.8 billion views.

Honey has been promoted by some of YouTube's biggest names, including Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, and Linus Sebastian of Linus Tech Tips.

The scandal surfaced through a comprehensive video posted by MegaLag on YouTube, who calls it "the biggest influencer scam of all time" based on an investigation that's apparently been ongoing for several years. 

What is "the Honey trap" influencer scam?
Honey is a browser extension meant to give you any relevant discount codes available when you shop online and automatically apply them to your checkout price, instantly saving you money. 

The idea is that using the extension means you don't have to hunt for coupons and codes, and in several influencer video promotions, it's described as free money. 

But Honey seems too good to be true: In tests across multiple sites, MegaLag was able to manually find working coupon codes when Honey couldn't find any, or better coupon codes than the ones automatically Honey applied. What's more, when bigger discounts are applied at checkout, Honey doesn't appear to add these codes to its database.

It seems that the extension has an influence on revenue sharing too. Honey has been heavily promoted by a long list of online influencers in the past, including MrBeast and Marques Brownlee.

According to MegaLag, the Honey extension deletes affiliate link cookies from these influencers when people click through to products from their YouTube videos and other sites, which would mean the influencers aren't paid for the referral. Instead, Honey would get their commission.

This allegedly happens even if no discounts are applied, and when users go for the PayPal Rewards cashback scheme too: The original affiliate link data is edited, and Honey pockets the bonus. 

In one example, Honey intercepts a $35 commission for a NordVPN subscription, leaving the original affiliate with nothing, then returns $0.89 of that back to the customer as cashback reward.

While the extension isn't malware, but you must remove it now. And it looks like millions of people are already doing just that.

Class Action Lawsuit

GamersNexus fles new class action lawsuit Against PayPal & Honey:

 

Class action lawsuit Against PayPal & Honey:

https://www.cpmlegal.com/cases-CPM-Investigating-PayPals-Honey-Browser-Extension-for-Possibly-Stealing-Referral-Fees

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CORRUPTION DOES SEEM GENERALLY TO BE  AT AN ALL TIME HIGH...