Honey ads - lies?

[warmmilk]

So Honey has bought a ton of ad space from LTT and I'm tired of hearing the company line over and over.  Has Honey actually worked for anyone?  Anytime I buy anything online its just "searching for coupons" for like a full minute to make it seem like it's doing something and then it comes back with unable to find anything.  There was one time it "found" a coupon code, the same code I had already put in before Honey did its pretend search.  On the rare occasion that it does have a coupon it give me the "sign in with your email to use coupon". 

 

Which brings me to my second point, they say they only make money on the vendor end, they don't sell any of the buyers info.  Is anyone actually buying that line?  Who is that gullible? If they weren't selling my buying habits why would they need me to sign up?  Signing up means they're tracking what I buy, if they track what I buy they're selling that info.  They don't need it for internal development cause they just have (well claim to have) coupons for everything, so all internal development should be towards finding all the coupon codes in existence and nothing targeted.  Any service that's claimed to be a free service you're paying with your data.  Unless they have ads.

 

The only use I've found for it is the price history for Amazon items.

 

Has Honey worked for you?  At more than a 1% rate? 

Did you sign up for an account with them? 

Do you actually believe that none of their income comes from selling your personal info?

 

 

 

[8tg]

I don’t use any of that garbage, I’m also the type of person to use pale moon and Adblock latitude and disable JavaScript when I can, so I’m not really their audience

 

Never trust those add-ons that try to masquerade like they’re providing you a free favor, there’s no way they aren’t tracking what you’re doing and monetizing it somehow. Everything that it does seems to be effectively just a google search for a coupon code anyway, there’s dozens of websites that host up to date coupon codes for anything and everything already.

Really all you’re benefiting from using Honey is not having to go search google for a minute or two.

[dizmo]

Yup, it works quite often, but it definitely depends on what sites you shop on. It's not going to work if the site doesn't offer coupons.

I'm rather skeptical of them as well. They claim they get a cut from the coupons, but that's odd in itself. It can't be referral fees, because you use it after you've decided to shop on the site, they're not driving traffic. I use Honey in a different browser if I think I'm going to be able to save money with it.

 

1 minute ago, 8tg said:

I don’t use any of that garbage, I’m also the type of person to use pale moon and Adblock latitude and disable JavaScript when I can, so I’m not really their audience

 

Never trust those add-ons that try to masquerade like they’re providing you a free favor, there’s no way they aren’t tracking what you’re doing and monetizing it somehow. Everything that it does seems to be effectively just a google search for a coupon code anyway, there’s dozens of websites that host up to date coupon codes for anything and everything already.

Really all you’re benefiting from using Honey is not having to go search google for a minute or two.

Not entirely true, it finds coupons far faster than going on Google and trying the potentially hundreds of ones that may or may not work.

[Sarra]

I installed it on my old machine (the Xeon Haswell), and it literally nuked my browser. Pages took 30-40 seconds to load, even stuff that wasn't shopping based. I disabled it, and that fixed it.

[zeusthemoose]

22 minutes ago, warmmilk said:

Has Honey worked for you?  At more than a 1% rate? 

Only time I remember using it was recently on rhinoshield. I don’t remember the exact specifics but it did find a bunch of codes that worked and used one that saved me like 20%.

[Tamesh16]

It has worked a couple of times, I don't mind it

[kirashi]

28 minutes ago, warmmilk said:

Has Honey worked for you?  At more than a 1% rate? 

Did you sign up for an account with them? 

Do you actually believe that none of their income comes from selling your personal info?

No, because I haven't signed up for an account with them. And yes, I believe some of their income is a result of selling your info.

 

Remember, if the service is free, YOU are the product. (Usually, but not always.)

[Roswell]

I use it when I buy stuff. I got like $80 in Amazon gift cards when I bought my MacBook from Honey Gold and another $50 or so from all of my other purchases. It's also saved me hundreds over time with the automatic promo code applications.

[RejZoR]

It never saved me even a cent. And I used it on multinational shops like Amazon, eBay or whatever. It also has zero concept of any local shops in my region. Like, at all. This thing is probably totally tailored around US market and US market alone. Also I don't do this stuff anymore. No one helps you save money without getting something in return. And with Honey it's your shopping habits most likely. Haven't checked their latest EULA. Waste of time if you ask me.

[JHMW19]

It has but less in 2020 than in 2019. The price history stuff is pretty useful though. 

[Spotty]

Tried using it for about a year in Australia, it never found a single coupon or deal so I ended up removing it.

Might work if you're in the USA but outside of that you would probably have better luck just trying to guess random coupon codes.

[williamcll]

At least it works for amazon.

[NineEyeRon]

I’m tired of hearing about ridge wallet as I don’t use a wallet.

[warmmilk]

2 hours ago, Vitamanic said:

I use it when I buy stuff. I got like $80 in Amazon gift cards when I bought my MacBook from Honey Gold and another $50 or so from all of my other purchases. It's also saved me hundreds over time with the automatic promo code applications.

 

1 hour ago, williamcll said:

At least it works for amazon.

I spend 5 figures a year on amazon, the only thing it has ever gotten me is price history.   Do both of you have an account with them?  Has it ever gotten you anything before you made an account? 

[warmmilk]

2 hours ago, RejZoR said:

It never saved me even a cent. And I used it on multinational shops like Amazon, eBay or whatever. It also has zero concept of any local shops in my region. Like, at all. This thing is probably totally tailored around US market and US market alone. Also I don't do this stuff anymore. No one helps you save money without getting something in return. And with Honey it's your shopping habits most likely. Haven't checked their latest EULA. Waste of time if you ask me.

Alexa EULA said it didn't listen to your conversations... just cause somethings not in there or there are privacy claims in the EULA doesn't make that actually the case.

[PineyCreek]

I'd prefer to look for coupons when I need them.  I don't need an extra extension touching my already bloated browser.

[Nayr438]

I use honey and it usually works, granted most of the coupon codes are publicly available on other sites. Overall it just saves me time. They do however partner with stores to offer things like cash back when a code isn't available, though it's so little that it takes awhile to amount amount to anything, in a year I am half way to $10. Similar to a lot of credit cards.

 

If I am not mistaking, They get revenue from kickbacks when you use their online store front or use any of their links.

 

In terms of selling data, I honestly wouldn't doubt it, but nearly everything does.

[Amias]

UK here. Never had it work. Tried it for years.

 

Judging by the comments here Honey is another 'merican thing, with the scraps dumped on the rest of the world.

 

Think I'll uninstall it now tbh.

[Sir Asvald]

36 minutes ago, Amias said:

UK here. Never had it work. Tried it for years.

 

Judging by the comments here Honey is another 'merican thing, with the scraps dumped on the rest of the world.

 

Think I'll uninstall it now tbh.

Thought I was the only one! from the UK too. I knew it was a load of garbage. 

[duncannah]

Never worked for me, also It's owned by PayPal so that's already bad in itself

[TetraSky]

Never worked for me on Amazon, been trying every time I make a purchase, for years, and still get disappointed each time. I'm in Canada if that matters.

Be it clothes, electronics, computer stuff, kitchenware, health stuff(mask and shit like that), cosmetics, food or random stuff like a fishing net or a metal foundry that my dad asked me to buy for him, none have ever worked with Honey.

In fact, one time, Honey claimed a coupon worked and it proudly displayed it on the extension, but it actually did not. That, was a hard blow.

I have no clue what specific item I have to buy for it to work, but considering I haven't bought any thus far, I'm guessing I don't need it.

 

As for price history... I just use Keepa.

[WaggishOhio383]

2 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Never worked for me on Amazon, been trying every time I make a purchase and still get disappointed each time. I'm in Canada if that matters.

Be it clothes, electronics, computer stuff, kitchenware, health stuff(mask and shit like that), cosmetics, food or random stuff like a fishing net or a metal foundry that my dad asked me to buy for him, none have ever worked with Honey.

In fact, one time, Honey claimed a coupon worked and it proudly displayed it on the extension, but it actually did not. That, was a hard blow.

I have no clue what specific item I have to buy for it to work, but considering I haven't bought any thus far, I'm guessing I don't need it.

In general, Honey doesn't work with Amazon. Amazon very rarely has promo codes that you can apply on items, so there's not much Honey can do. I've seen it work on other websites before. Just don't remember which ones.

[p51mustang23]

Honey works well with several sites.  It can't make up coupon codes where none exist.  

How they are actually making their money, who knows.  

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

I had it work once when I was ordering a bag from Lenovo, saved a few bucks. Other than that, haven't been able to get it to work when ordering off Best Buy or Amazon. At least it's not obstructive so if anything, it's just nice to have around to see if you can actually save a few bucks here and there.

[SFFDesigns]

It has worked for me, although I don't always use it since I don't have it installed on all of my computers.