How the Honey Extension Was Revealed to Be a Long-Running Scam

The PayPal-owned Honey browser extension has long been popular among users seeking the best online prices. It amassed millions of users and was widely promoted by some of the biggest influencers around.

However, in December 2024, the extension came under serious scrutiny, after it was revealed to use some shady and deceitful practices. This guide explores what the Honey extension scam is, how it happened, who was affected, and what the fallout from the scam has been.

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What Is the Honey Extension?

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the Honey extension scam, here’s a quick explainer of what Honey is.

Honey is a free browser extension, first released in 2012. It was bought by PayPal in 2020 for around $4 billion. It is designed to help users find and use coupon or promo codes when shopping online. It claims to search for the best available codes on your behalf and applies them for you, saving you time and helping you slash the prices of the products you buy.

What Is the Honey Extension Scam?

In theory, the Honey extension sounds great. It saves people time and money. This is why it quickly became popular, gaining around 20 million users. It also benefitted from some major marketing campaigns, especially in the field of influencer marketing. Big-name YouTubers, such as MrBeast and MKBHD, regularly promoted the extension in their videos to audiences of millions.

Ironically, it was another YouTuber, MegaLag, who revealed the truth behind the Honey extension scam. In a video released in December 2024, MegaLag shared the results of his own deep investigation into the extension. In that video, MegaLag explained that Honey was not abiding by its promises to users, in several ways.

Firstly, he found that the extension was using a process called last-click attribution to steal commissions and affiliate revenue from sites and creators. Usually, if you click a link to a product from a blog, a website, or even the description box of a YouTube video, and then you buy that product, cookies let the seller know who sent you there, so they get a commission or cut of the sale.

Through last-click attribution, Honey was effectively modifying the cookies to make it seem like it was the one who sent the user to the product page. Therefore, if they bought anything, it was Honey taking the cut, and not the real affiliate. So, many people, from major YouTubers to independent blog owners, were missing out on important revenue.

But they weren’t the only ones affected. All the users of Honey were also victims of this scam. MegaLag’s video revealed that Honey, despite claiming to scan for the best promo codes, didn’t always do that. It sometimes failed to find codes that you could easily get via Google, preventing users from truly getting the best deals.

What Has Happened Since?

In the first couple of weeks after MegaLag’s video came out alone, Honey lost around three million users. The company behind it – PayPal – has also been targeted with numerous class-action lawsuits, backed by some major brands, like GamersNexus, which claim to have missed out on a lot of revenue because of the extension’s shady practices.

Google has also responded. In March, it updated Chrome Web Store policies to ban any extensions that claim affiliate revenue without providing any discounts. The Honey extension was subsequently updated so that it no longer claims commissions if it is unable to provide a real discount to the user. PayPal, meanwhile, has fully defended the extension, and many continue to use it.

Meanwhile, many of the influencers involved in promoting Honey have had to face backlash among their audiences.

How to Protect Yourself From Scams Like This

If you have Honey installed, you may want to consider removing it from your browser.
Be wary about any browser extensions you install, even those promoted by popular figures.
Always do independent research to look for coupon codes, as extensions like Honey do not always provide the best possible codes to help you save money.