this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025

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372

[Gamers Nexus] Investigation: GamersNexus Files New Lawsuit Against PayPal & Honey (youtu.be)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 125 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

LegalEagle and Wendover Productions actually beat them to the punch (Nebula) on this. They filed on 29th December 2024, a whole 4 days earlier.

And since the US courts charge money to get these documents, I downloaded a copy of the complaint earlier on my PACER account so anyone who's interested can read it without incurring the stupid fees. Enjoy

Edit: Devin Stone (the host of LegalEagle) is actually a lawyer on this case. His name and his law firm are listed as a lawyer for the plaintiff on the complaint.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

In GN's video the law firm mentioned there are 3-4 cases already and they are probably getting combined or go to the same judge. (IANAL; IDK the specifics)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Precisely.

Tthey said that they started work on it and by the time they submitted it, they found out that others had already done the same (of course they wouldn't have known this when they started the legwork), but that ultimately that doesn't matter because if it goes class-action – which is their desired path of action – the cases will be combined anyway.

If anything it's beneficial that multiple people took this up, it should make class-action more likely.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Exactly. It takes weeks and perhaps longer to put together a case, so the fact that they're within a few days of each other is pretty remarkable and implies they have a pretty good case. Hopefully they can combine notes and really take Honey to the cleaners.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Jesus, spelling mistake in the first sentence of the complaint. Fire the legal aide.

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 2 months ago (1 children)

At this rate Steve is going to end up offed or cancelled in some kind of way, he keeps digging deeper.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (3 children)

They are running a drama/scandal focussed channel. Of course they are going to be controversial at times.

[–] [email protected] 108 points 2 months ago (2 children)

investigative journalism is drama now 👍

[–] [email protected] 40 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Just to make a more meta comment, this is a case where cynicism is definitely not helping. We need better journalists to do this kind of deep dive without concern for losing a revenue stream. And not just in gaming hardware, either.

If we cynically label every journalist that does it as "drama mongers", we're only hurting ourselves.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The way they are phrasing things is very sensationalist. They are very much not doing dry, factual content. This probably is required to make a profit, but too me is still drama.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What do you mean not doing factual content, they literally had a lawyer with them in their video about NZXT scams. They also showed tons of proof how NZXT was lying to the customers. NZXT CEO was eventually forced to do an interview regarding these news. Is it still drama to you?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (3 children)

They aren't doing dry content. They do emotional but factual content.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

that's because they are forced to by the yt algorithm: you flat out cannot run a business on yt without resorting to clickbait titles, stupid thumbnails, and a bit of sensationalization, because the algorithm will deprioritize your video and unfairly limit your viewership if you don't do those things.

Steve's videos are generally very much dry, factual reporting using fairly neutral language; or in other words: really decent reporting!

if you want to complain about some tech youtuber doing the exact things you complain about, look at linus and jay...

there's some good reasons why steve is one of only a handful of tech channels i still subscribe to...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Hot take, who cares if it's mildly emotional as long as it delivers the truth. The issue with sensationalism is that it usually hides the truth, lies, or tells half truths. If the facts are all right there, who care?

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not really. Reviews and weekly news are still their bread and butter. They do a few of these deep dive investigations per year.

And they do very detailed reviews.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

They seem to be doing far more of them lately.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago

Companies are going to shit more quickly these days

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Your being downvoted because they cannot handle the truth.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

If you haven't seen it yet, check out this investigation on Honey (20 minutes, Part 1):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vc4yL3YTwWk

It's fascinating stuff. Open fraud.

I can't speak for formal legal matters (I am assuming such scams are nominally legal in the US), but it goes to show that senior PayPal executives are basically criminals. There is no way they didn't know about this.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I mean, Paypal is a bank that isn't beholden to all the normal bank regulations and customer protection rules due to technicalities. They have been caught effectively seizing customer funds through locking accounts for questionable reasons before, and offer no reasonable way of recovering funds from locked accounts. Numerous stories of people operating online etsy (and similar) storefronts getting accounts locked for vague claims they were actively money laundering, with no means for appeal.

Anyone just now becoming aware of the paypal execs' corruption hasn't been paying attention.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There's a reason that a set of grifters who ran the place is nicknamed "The Paypal Mafia".

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

LTT fans are in complete meltdown over big mean steve pointing out that Linus seemingly discovered this and stayed completely quiet about it.

Linus seems to had a big hissy fit about the whole subject of Honey on his WAN show, too.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

WAN show is like 33% Linus whining about any actual or perceived slight against him for like over a year now. It's getting so annoying.

I tend to agree that they should have spoken up. Even if just for the damn clicks and views.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If you're no longer doing business with them, why not be vocal about why? If there's a legitimate reason, it tells other partners where your line is so they know whether you're a good fit for them. Don't bad mouth them, but explain the facts and encourage viewers and other YouTubers to avoid them for the stated reasons.

I honestly don't see what's wrong with that. Steve from GN has done much worse and still gets sponsors, so it really can't be that.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

But they did state the reasons, on their forums. At the time it was only known Honey steals money from affiliate link owners, not from users, and presumably it worked correctly for users.

So what do you think would happen if they encouraged viewers not to use it? "Hey we know this extension makes you money, but please don't use it because we, millionaire YouTubers, are getting smaller profits when your do, and our profits are more important than your savings". They checked with other creators, most of YouTube stopped promoting it at the time, and that was it. It would be seen as very self-serving to complain about it to users/viewers.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

It turns out, people care about supporting channels they watch a lot. In fact, I go out of my way to use affiliate links if they helped me decide with their review.

All they need to say is "Honey strips our affiliate links, so I'd appreciate if you don't use that extension," and provide some evidence. It doesn't even need a full video, maybe use it as a segway into a sponsor that does honor referal URLs.

If users know Honey is messing with URLs for their own benefit, maybe they'll look for an alternative.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Linus posted about it on the forum, and everything he said on the WAN show is correct if you actually watch the full clip instead of what GN edited it to say

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

While I think Linus can be way too whiny at times. I think he handled the situation well if everything stated is true. He made it clear on his forum that they terminated the partnership/sponsorship. He could have made a 'more public statement (e.g., a video on ltt)' but as he stated, viewers probably would have raked him over the coals for doing so. It likely would have been perceived as 'oh no! Honey stole money from me but gave you a discount. Woe is me.'

He still is too whiny as of the last few years but as a small business (very small; ~20 employees) owner myself, I kind of get it. I go out of my way to try to give my employees the best possible experience but sometimes people think I'm just taking advantage of them (despite me paying my full-time employees 1.5x my pre-tax take home rate). So I kind of get why he acts that way at times. Now, I don't condone it, but I understand.

Edit I love what Steve from GN is doing. I reported the honey extension when this news initially came out. I have supported all his pro consumer reports/actions.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago (9 children)

I am genuinely concerned about this because Legal Eagle’s suit is directly tied to manipulating URLs and cookies. The suit, even with its focus on last click attribution, doesn’t make an incredibly specific argument. If Legal Eagle wins, this sets a very dangerous precedent for ad blockers being illegal because ad blockers directly manipulate cookies and URLs. I haven’t read the Gamer’s Nexus one yet.

Please note that I’m not trying to defend Honey at all. They’re actively misleading folks.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 months ago (4 children)

That's like saying bank robberies being illegal mean that going to the bank is illegal.

Honey is unlawful because of what they DO by changing those URLs and cookies, e.g enriching themselves at the expense of creators.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago (5 children)

It could never apply to ad blockers. You install an ad blocker knowing that it will block stuff... and explicitly WANTING it to do so.

Nobody installed honey knowing that it was manipulating cookies and stuff. The normal layperson who installs it will just think "It's just chucking in coupon codes into that box!"...

One is predicated on a lie of omission... the other is literally what the user wants. There's a huge difference...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

It could never apply to ad blockers.

I mean it certainly could if it was deemed so broad as "Honey was manipulating affiliate links", but I don't think it would.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (1 children)

But adblockers don't enable unlawful enrichment. Or do they?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Only paid ones. Theoretically could impact Brave, for instance.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I understand why you would think that, but this is not the case. Not a lawyer though, not legal advice.

There are 2 main types of causes of action for this, let's go over them:

Conversion, unjust enrichment: Here, Legal eagle and other creators allege Honey took money that was supposed to go to them. Basically just theft. This does not apply to adblock, since they don't take the money.
Tortious interference: Here they claim, that by removing the tracking cookie, they unlawfully interfere with the business relationship between the affiliates and the shopping platform. This could maybe apply to ad-blockers, but it is almost certainly superseded by the user explicitly wanting to remove tracking cookies, and the user has the right to do so. Saying that it is unlawful interference is like saying a builder hired by a land owner to build a fence is interfering with truckers who were using the land as a shortcut. They had no legal right to pass through the land in the first place. So the owner can commission a fence and a builder can build it. A contract between the truckers and amazon would not matter. In case of honey, it is like the builder was not hired by the owner and just built the fence to spite the truckers without owners permission.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

I think it'll be okay, Honey was actually making money from the manipulation without user knowlage.

Adblocks don't make money and users are (should be) aware that tracking links and stuff gets removed.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago

Tech Jesus strikes again!

Prepare for his cumming

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago

Shit’s getting real in Honey’s legal department.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

In a short 10-15 years we will see a resolution to this case and be able to have closure. A blink of a eye.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (11 children)

Meh. I don't care about youtube personalities losing money when they all collectively contributed to lowering our standards and making us accept a 'new normal' of ads in videos.

spits

Make sure you download the SponsorBlock browser addon. It automatically skips over sponsored ads in the middle of youtube videos.

Edit: Good job sticking up for people who only see you as dollar signs. Can't say I expected more.