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.
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.