Honey Influencer Scam - Exposed Over 4 Years Ago!

is the honey app a HUGE youtube influencer scam?

well 4 years ago i made this video

talking about the honey app and how many youtubers were promoting it and how it makes money.

then a few days ago a video went viral about the honey scam and someone even said its the biggest scam in youtube history.

lets talk about the truth :) remember these are just my opinions... check out the other videos here:

Rakuten $41M Per Day Affiliate Business Exposed + 10 Ways To Profit!

WikiHow - Get Paid To Write Articles & The $55,901 Article...

$638 A Day - Finding Scams Online - This Is Crazy!

Free Google Traffic = $3,000,000 Per Day - With PROOF - Affiliate Marketing

subscribe and binge watch my money videos :-)

REMEMBER: watching this training is in NO WAY saying you will earn any money. there is a lot of work involved and marcus has been at this for over 25 years... but what you can expect is real world information on how he runs his business and how he has helped others do the same.

[affiliatemarketingdude]

share your thoughts below... is this a complete scam - genius affiliate method - or just a shadey business?

[oneoflokis]

I think that any software that steals affiliates' commissions should be classified as malware, and banned!

[sandornyemcsok]

Okay, the video looks at Honey from the content creator's POV only. But a very important part is missing, which is the statement from Honey to the end user that Honey always founds the best coupons. However at the same time Honey offers agreement for the sellers that in exchange for commission Honey allows sellers to control which coupons are found. And this is a clear and straightforward fraud.

[SuperEliasboi]

The algorithm may have tried to stop him but he returned!!!!

[PabloEdvardo]

5:00 sorry friend but you got it all wrong here, and you're on the wrong side. you seem to immediately be missing the two most egregious issues here. 1) influencers were not told that once their users installed honey, the influencer would no longer receive affiliate commissions on any links shared to that user, as they would instead go to honey. 2) honey turns what would have been a non-commission sale into a commission sale, meaning it's bad for storefronts overall, since now a portion of their revenue goes to an affiliate... simply browsing amazon and buying something you normally would now means honey steals a portion of that revenue. they did nothing to deserve commission for a sale they weren't involved in

your video smells very much like you're so deep in the industry that you aren't able to reason or see the reality in front of you, and so when you argue that influencers weren't doing their due diligence, perhaps you should also reflect on your own blindness, and how everyone is subject to being taken advantage of when a blindness is known

[Nickolia]

They are taking affiliate links from non Honey promoters as well, so Joe Blow with a camera blog that spends a bunch of time doing a review is also getting his link poached at checkout, not just the Linus' of the world.

[UncleScottsKitchen]

Been making YouTube videos for six years and I have Amazon and a few other affiliate programs. I had no idea Honey even existed until this week. If I make a 35 minute video on a frying pan for example, and people click on my affiliate link to buy one, and then Honey comes in and snakes the affiliate commissions at checkout then that seems incredibly shady. I have to disclose my affiliate links in every video I make.

[pcnoad]

The YouTube algorithm is really the key to MegaLag's success. I hadn't thought of Honey once since the last time I saw an ad for it a few years ago. I ignored the ads then partially cause I sensed it was fishy, but mostly cause I just find ads generally annoying. The result is that I wasn't even interested enough to research it and find your video.

When the MegaLag video was released it appeared on my recommended anyway. I'm not sure why YouTube thought I would be interested other than maybe it saw that I had also watched the Gamers Nexus video about NZXT's PC rental scam or Karl Jobst's videos about The Completionist and thought this was similar enough content. The only other thing I can think of is that MegaLag's video is also critical of LinusTechTips who I am a subscriber of.

I've since been critical of Linus's failure to call out Honey since dropping them as a sponsor. He feels it wasn't his story to tell, and that it wasn't necessary anyway as news of it was already public. I'm curious what thoughts you might have on that if any.

Either way, how does it feel to be able to say "I told you so" this many years later?

[chrisjacksonSATX]

Dude. Honey is not only making 55 million a year, they sold for 4 BILLION 4 years ago, they are making big $$ doing this. Your 55 million source is embarrassing to use to try to lower the perceived impact of this scam. Why would you think that number is accurate?

[Juttutin]

Saying it's not a scam (in part) because the financial impact on their affiliate links was too small for them to notice sounds like the opposite of a good argument.

Overall, your expertise in the space is clearly helpful BUT this video kinda reeks of being a partial defence or limited criticism because you are compromised by being part of the industry.

e.g. just disclosing that they are affiliates, even somewhat prominently in the middle of their home page, just goes further in the direction of being able to get away by scamming (yes scamming) people who were sold on the pitch and didn't go hunting for the gotcha in the website copy (which is just the shallow version of the 'buried in the legal T&Cs' argument for people who don't go deep digging for reasons to not to do the thing that they're being told to do.

So sorry. I have given this video and your one from four years ago thumbs-up. But you come across like someone who thinks outright deception in marketing is kinda okay, so long as it is only effective on the most gullible and naïve people.

And that might be totally unfair, and based only of these two videos of yours. But I get a (much weaker) avoidant emotional response to you as I got from Honeys marketing.

[myguardiananimal]

Companies and people like this just keep giving affiliate marketers a bad name.

[guprovasi]

I think this exposed more creators/youtubers, on how little they know about affiliate marketing (and incredibly they still make money from it). 😂

Bloggers and webmasters had to learn all this over the years, to survive the most predatory practices that exist in this environment... 😅

[EzekielMessenger]

The same people that made Honey are now pushing PIE which is even more shady

[YourAverageProgrammerx]

sorry yo vid didn't get attention my bro 😭

[ajajaaukka]

I think that Honey snatching the commission from affiliates who haven't even promoted Honey _at all_ even when not providing coupons or just literally by having the user click a button from their popup is the dirtiest move in digital business I have seen in a while...

This has got to change somehow. People are really pissed right now so I'm really eager to know how this is going to shake the influencer world and will it overall lift the "Internet scamming" topic to the surface once again.

[fragheads]

Like your content but I think I saw you made a video awhile ago talking about how one of your students is the one who created the honey extension. So you could be biased off of this type of thing. If they are taking and replacing someone else’s affiliate code right at checkout I don’t care how it’s spun it’s deceptive business practices plains and simple.

[Mattvbro]

This is the video i would make if i was invested in the company 😂

[ZombieBraintrust]

So, it should be noted that your youtube recommendations are different his youtube recommendations.

[sevjon]

Not disclosing important information is shady but not a fraud? Im sorry you lost me there

[rkoppie]

I think you have an interest mitigating the issue mate. The video does explain it is not always "last wins" just saying it usually is and is abused as such by Honey. Furthermore you try blaming the influencers having been paid. They got robbed for much more than being paid and were "charged" unknowingly. Your neck deep in this crap I feel. Changing websites changing cookies is normal but an extension making sure it is always last before checkout is a scam. You are misframing intentionally. Disgusting