Investigating Stolen Influencer Commissions

Berger Montague is investigating claims by YouTubers, bloggers, and other content creators (“Influencers”) that apps and browser extensions widely used by shoppers steal commissions that Influencers earn when they recommend products to their followers. These browser extensions being investigated include PayPal Honey, Capital One Shopping, Rakuten, RetailMeNot, and others.

The Scheme to Steal Commissions

Influencers recommend specific products to their followers and earn sales commissions when their followers purchase those products. The retail companies that work with the Influencers provide them with a unique link that they can post online. When a shopper clicks on the Influencer’s unique link immediately before making a purchase, the Influencer is credited for that sale and gets paid a commission. The industry refers to this practice as “last click attribution.”

Several Influencers have recently filed lawsuits claiming that PayPal’s Honey browser extension is cheating them out of commissions. Honey is a widely used and offered to online shoppers for free. Honey claims to comb the internet for coupons that can be applied to online purchases or confirm that the price the consumer sees is the best price available.

The alleged problem is that Honey has been systematically stealing commissions that belong to Influencers by inserting itself as the source of the “last click” when a product is purchased. This means that even if a customer uses an Influencer’s unique link to buy a product, Honey gets the credit and the commission. Because of this, influencers claim that Honey is stealing commissions to which the influencers are entitled.

Berger Montague Can Help

Attorneys at Berger Montague are investigating Honey and similar companies, including Capital One Shopping, Rakuten, RetailMeNot, and others for these violations. If you are an Influencer or someone that earns commissions with affiliate links, contact us to see whether you may be able to bring a legal claim for damages alleging commissions have been unfairly stolen by Honey or other companies.

Berger Montague is one of the nation’s preeminent law firms focusing on complex civil litigation, class actions, and mass torts in federal and state courts throughout the United States. The firm is active in the fields of antitrust, commercial litigation, consumer protection, defective products, environmental law, employment law, securities, and whistleblower cases, among many other practice areas. For more than 50 years, Berger Montague has played lead roles in precedent-setting cases and has recovered over $50 billion for its clients and the classes they have represented. Berger Montague is headquartered in Philadelphia and has offices in Chicago, Minneapolis, San Diego, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington, D.C., and Wilmington, DE.