New Zealand Youtuber reveals that PayPal-owned Honey website may be the biggest financial consumer scam in history

New Zealand YouTuber MegaLag recently uploaded a video exposing that many famous internet celebrities who recommend their fans to use Honey to find online discount websites are actually a fraud website, and it may be the largest financial scam ever targeted at Youtube Influencers. MegaLag stated that Honey not only defrauds consumers, but also steals the affiliate commissions that Youtubers should have earned from promoting the website. He believes this form of online fraud has cost content creators millions of dollars. After years of investigation, MegaLag found that Honey does not actually provide most users with real discount benefits, and the victims of this scam include not only online consumers, but also the influencers who promoted the application and the individuals or companies who tried to earn commissions through referral links. How the Online Discount Website Honey Operates Honey is a Chrome browser extension that claims to find discount codes for products users want to buy, and provides cash back rewards when using the codes at checkout. PayPal acquired Honey for around $4 billion in 2020. Honey has about 17 million users and claims each user saves an average of $126 per year, with nearly 18% in discount savings. This PayPal-owned application is a favorite recommendation of content creators and influencers, including Mr. Beast, MKBHD, and Linus Tech Tips, who have endorsed and marketed it. Is Honey a Click-Bait Website? MegaLag stated that technically, Honey replaces the Affiliate Cookies generated by influencer referral links with its own Cookies, allowing the commission from product sales to go to Honey instead of the influencers, effectively exploiting them and preventing them from earning profits. While Honey claims to find various discounts, it is actually just profit-sharing arrangements with partner merchants, with the ultimate goal of funneling consumer data to the PayPal website. Consumers cannot verify if they truly save a lot of money. The "free" Honey, like many tech industry tactics, means the users themselves are the product that can be sold. It is difficult to definitively define whether this type of digital marketing using referral discount links is considered fraud. However, if the "black technology" behind it secretly replaces the links that should generate profits, or the ultimate goal is to steal personal information and consumer data, then it would be considered a crime.