It appears that the mechanism of how Honey works was written in their fine print in complex techy language, something none of the influencers noticed when agreeing to. PayPal (owner of Honey) says that Honey operates within standard industry practices, particularly the “last-click attribution” model commonly used in affiliate marketing. They are being investigated, there are already multiple lawsuits now that the topic got blown up- so the legality of these practices is currently under judicial review. Whatever the outcome, what they did in absolute sense was borderline fraud.