Paypal’s Honey, a popular coupon-finding browser extension, faces backlash after accusations of unfair practices. The controversy centers on Honey’s use of last-click attribution, a method for online shopping that only gives credit to the owner of the last affiliate cookie before a checkout.
Youtuber MegaLag claims that Honey replaces the existing affiliate tracking cookies with its own. This process reportedly allows Honey to take credit for sales from other affiliates.
Youtubers, such as LegalEagle and GamersNexus who promoted the browser extension, are pursuing a lawsuit against the company. Customers have reported that the coupon finder often fails to find valid codes, highlighting issues with its effectiveness.
The coupon-finder extension has affected teachers and students, including those at Del Mar.
“I tried it, and I feel like it wasn’t even that helpful. I was having a hard time like getting it to find codes, like it gave me $20 off for my bed, which is not very much. And I’ve tried it on other websites, and I feel like it doesn’t really give me that many good discounts. Don’t even know how helpful it is, and it’s scamming people,” Mrs. Rabasca, a math teacher stated.
Rabasca disliked the Honey Coupon Extension to the point where she found a better alternative.
“I’m like, okay, the only one that works for me is the Safeway app. And it’ll give me like free pasta sometimes.”
Biology teacher Ms. Iyengar said, “So I feel like it’s pretty shocking that they’ve gotten away with it for this long before it was recognized.”
When questioned on whether Honey could recover from the allegations, Iyengar said, “Do we want them to? I personally don’t. I’m like, I don’t care if they can come back from this. If they suck, then like, okay, like, businesses can fail, and it’s okay for it to fail and be done. And it sounds like they were not good at what they were doing, so I’m okay with them failing and not needing to come back.”
“Honestly, I kind of saw it coming because the whole honey as, like, corporation and company was a little too good to be true,” Junior Isabella Ramirez said, “You know, so I had a suspicion from the start. But, like, obviously I didn’t like, think too much on it. But when I found out that there was, like, a scam allegation, I was like, oh, that makes sense. You know I could see it coming.”
Ramirez stated she first heard about Honey through their sponsorship program with popular YouTubers.
