I heard that vague snippet from the podcast in the video. From my time in the affiliate space (which was a few years ago), Honey would not let merchants delete a code unless it was an employee or internal code. If it was publicly available, they refused to delete a code without providing an equivalent exclusive code. Maybe that policy has changed? If so, that's definitely bad, but I have no way to confirm that and I don't see any proof.
But they are allowed to claim attribution even if they don't find a coupon. Merchants know this when partnering with Honey. Most of the time, even if users don't find a coupon, they still get cash back which is funded through the commission.
Like I said, the affiliate industry is pretty wack and that's why I left it, but this is far from a scam.
Clearly users didn’t know that all this was going on. And neither did the social media influencers who promoted honey while being robbed by it.
If it were an honest business, honey wouldn’t have needed to hide what they did. (And lie about it on their website - where they claimed until recently that honey found you the best deals). Also if it were an honest business, nobody would be surprised or mad when it all came out. Honest businesses can just explain everything and people still want to do business with them!
What honey did doesn’t pass the pub test. It’s scummy.
But they are allowed to claim attribution even if they don't find a coupon. Merchants know this when partnering with Honey. Most of the time, even if users don't find a coupon, they still get cash back which is funded through the commission.
Like I said, the affiliate industry is pretty wack and that's why I left it, but this is far from a scam.