Considering how many influencers did and still do sponserships for Better Help, a company that actually gets people killed by failing at its singular purpose, I feel nothing but joy seeing them get scammed by it.
It is sadly worse than just influencers getting scammed.
Anyone using this app is actively getting scammed as it is actually not scouring the internet for the best deals. So it will falsely tell you that there are no coupons/sales available when there actually are coupons/sales available for the product, and those deals are super easy to find. Additionally, they are making money off of every single purchase you make, regardless of whether they even gave you a coupon, as if they were responsible for you making the purchase (effectively acting as an affiliate for everything), and no doubt tracking said purchases to sell your data.
On top of this, it appears they are also performing some sort of scam to the retail side of things too, by applying a coupon fraudulently to a purchase, and strong-arming the retail to apply the discount.
Genuinely, this company should be nuked from orbit.
If they were at the very least, actually trying to search for coupons, I wouldn't have an issue with Honey, at least from a consumer perspective. I'd still never use it, because I can't stand the privacy violations that are virtually guaranteed from this, but I'd view it as the cost of it being a "free" service. It also gobbling up affiliate links (in instances when no one has recommended the product to you, IE you didnt get there via an affiliate link) is....kind of acceptable though I'd say that is very much gaming the system and a bit shady in and of itself. Its acceptable though since there are costs with designing algorithms that properly search and find coupons and deals, so that would offset costs and even allow for profit. And an argument could be made that the person wouldn't have bought the product if a coupon wasn't applied to it.
That said, and reiterating what was said before....they aren't searching through all coupons and thus are painting a false picture. They have for the longest time claimed that they were searching everywhere for the best deals, and I wouldnt be surprised if the overwhelming majority of ads/sponsor-blocks all say as much, as they have certainly NOT taken down any of their old ads/sponsored video sections...which is all painting a very false picture of what the app is actively doing and hell, they were likely lies back then too. Its one thing to accidentally miss a coupon, its a whole different beast when its intentionally doing so.
.they aren't searching through all coupons and thus are painting a false picture.
In this way, I absolutely agree with you it is a scam through a false picture.
But as its also a free program that is kinda doing what it says it will, then I think its simply marketing overhype instead of an outright total falsehood.
Which is still bad, and we should hold them to account on. But that's also like 80% of all ads for any service as well. Most don't have "the lowest prices in town" or "the best pizza" etc. So from a legal standpoint, I don't think its any worse than most advertisements other than being an internet thing (and thereby feeling more new/personal to us).
Its one of those deals where if we were going to hold companies to task for misleading advertisements, we missed the ship a long time ago and now its too normalized to really get the rock moving.
Considering how many influencers did and still do sponserships for Better Help, a company that actually gets people killed by failing at its singular purpose, I feel nothing but joy seeing them get scammed by it.
It is sadly worse than just influencers getting scammed.
Anyone using this app is actively getting scammed as it is actually not scouring the internet for the best deals. So it will falsely tell you that there are no coupons/sales available when there actually are coupons/sales available for the product, and those deals are super easy to find. Additionally, they are making money off of every single purchase you make, regardless of whether they even gave you a coupon, as if they were responsible for you making the purchase (effectively acting as an affiliate for everything), and no doubt tracking said purchases to sell your data.
On top of this, it appears they are also performing some sort of scam to the retail side of things too, by applying a coupon fraudulently to a purchase, and strong-arming the retail to apply the discount.
Genuinely, this company should be nuked from orbit.
The consumer side is a scam but its also one of those situations where "nothing is ever free and you are a fool for assuming such."
So while bad, its harder to evoke sympathy for that because its obvious they'd be getting paid off you somehow.
If they were at the very least, actually trying to search for coupons, I wouldn't have an issue with Honey, at least from a consumer perspective. I'd still never use it, because I can't stand the privacy violations that are virtually guaranteed from this, but I'd view it as the cost of it being a "free" service. It also gobbling up affiliate links (in instances when no one has recommended the product to you, IE you didnt get there via an affiliate link) is....kind of acceptable though I'd say that is very much gaming the system and a bit shady in and of itself. Its acceptable though since there are costs with designing algorithms that properly search and find coupons and deals, so that would offset costs and even allow for profit. And an argument could be made that the person wouldn't have bought the product if a coupon wasn't applied to it.
That said, and reiterating what was said before....they aren't searching through all coupons and thus are painting a false picture. They have for the longest time claimed that they were searching everywhere for the best deals, and I wouldnt be surprised if the overwhelming majority of ads/sponsor-blocks all say as much, as they have certainly NOT taken down any of their old ads/sponsored video sections...which is all painting a very false picture of what the app is actively doing and hell, they were likely lies back then too. Its one thing to accidentally miss a coupon, its a whole different beast when its intentionally doing so.
In this way, I absolutely agree with you it is a scam through a false picture.
But as its also a free program that is kinda doing what it says it will, then I think its simply marketing overhype instead of an outright total falsehood.
Which is still bad, and we should hold them to account on. But that's also like 80% of all ads for any service as well. Most don't have "the lowest prices in town" or "the best pizza" etc. So from a legal standpoint, I don't think its any worse than most advertisements other than being an internet thing (and thereby feeling more new/personal to us).
Its one of those deals where if we were going to hold companies to task for misleading advertisements, we missed the ship a long time ago and now its too normalized to really get the rock moving.