How FHG-NeoLife Trainees Used Fake Meta, Fiverr Profiles to Win Freelance Jobs

Glory Adelowo

Ismail Olanrewaju was a freshman at the Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE) in 2022 when a classmate, Jamiu, offered to teach him some digital skills.

For weeks, Mr Olanrewaju, now a 400-level student, threw himself into the training that was held day and night in Jamiu’s dorm room. He learned website development and affiliate marketing on e-commerce websites such as Amazon and Shopify. 

Two months into the training, Jamiu invited Mr Olanrewaju to the “office”, where he was introduced to what was described as the “other part of the business” –The NeoLife Network Marketing.

By the time Mr Olanrewaju got his first gig on Fiverr and made $500 for a website creation project for a client, he already knew about the requirement to set aside a portion of the proceeds to buy supplements, one of the products NeoLife trades in.

“I was told I needed to get a NeoLife wellness supplement to advance in the business and also build my own team,” he told Campus Reporter.

“I bought a supplement for N150,000, and recruited two people into the business. I became responsible for them, and my growth in the business partly depends on their success. I got myself two laptops and a mobile phone.”

Enter NeoLife

At least five students of FUOYE who have participated in similar programmes told Campus Reporter that the promise of marketable digital skills lured them into what eventually became NeoLife’s Network Marketing Structure. 

The organisation is widely reported to have exploited young Nigerians with the promise of high-pay employment and huge returns on investment, only to be disappointed. The group is known to use rogue recruitment methods, including fake job offers for individuals who later find themselves hawking wellness products.

According to the students, advancement in the marketing structure depended on recruiting more people to buy the product. The students said they are first presented with the Faith Heroic Generation (FHG), which trains them in digital skills before pushing them into NeoLife, where a portion of their earnings must be spent on wellness products.

Their account with the FHG-NeoLife reflects a pattern consistent with characteristics that the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) identifies in pyramid schemes. 

At FUOYE, several groups headed by students from these organisations have emerged. The groups have names that indicate wealth, such as Dream Achievers or Fortune 500, named after the list of the largest United States corporations by revenue.

Former participants of the programme said the groups operate as recruitment bases for the pyramid scheme of the Neolife-FHG partnership. Although Neolife described itself as a Multi-Level Marketing company, its operations fit into the spectrum of what the SEC described as a pyramid scheme.

Neolife did not respond to our emails seeking comment. One consultant for the company told Campus Reporter that the organisation doesn’t have a spokesperson in Nigeria, and promised to facilitate a response from the company. The response didn’t come for weeks.

Digital Violations

After a while, the thrill of acquiring a digital skill and a possible source of income that drew Mr Olanrewaju into the business began to give way to despair as he struggled to meet the demands of several targets set. 

According to him, the targets included an amount of money they needed to make from the skills they learned; in his own case, website development and affiliate marketing. He said he also had targets on the number of clients he must have worked for in the same week.

Failure to meet these targets, which are mostly outside his control, results in hefty fines or physical punishment like frog jumps, he said. 

“I was always afraid and distressed to go to the office, especially on Fridays during our weekly checkup,” he said.

“At this checkup meeting, names are called out, and if you have not made the demanded amount in that week, you’re heavily punished. If you have money, you can be billed N50,000 or N20,000 to avoid the punishment. The punishment, which is usually frog jumps, is too extreme.”

But to get high-paying clients, he was taught deception methods that include harvesting social media users’ data and using it to create accounts on platforms like Fiverr.

Mr Olanrewaju explained that they use the harvested information of foreign nationals who are white, as clients are likely to trust them better than a black person.

“We have to create these profiles so we can land clients, as many of our clients trust non-black experts and would choose them over black ones,” he said.

Meanwhile, this act violates Fiverr’s Terms of Service, which prohibit users from creating false identities or misrepresenting themselves on the platform. 

“Your profile information, including your description, skills, location, etc., must be accurate and complete and may not be misleading, illegal, offensive or otherwise harmful,” the platform said.

Facebook Violations

Like him, Favour Oluwaseun, a 400-level student at FUOYE, recalled how a friend’s seeming success story in her second year sparked her interest in joining the FHG-Neolife in pursuit of financial freedom. 

At the NeoLife office, a three-bedroom flat in Oye Egbo, Oye Ekiti, Ekiti State, she and about 25 other students were taught affiliate marketing on Shopify. They learned how to help business owners create online stores on Shopify, an e-commerce platform used to sell products online, process payments, manage inventory, and handle customer orders. 

Ms Oluwaseun’s ‘sponsor’, a euphemism for the person who brought her into NeoLife, taught her deceptive methods of getting clients.

The student explained that they harvest social media users’ information, like names and pictures on Instagram, to create Facebook accounts and fake track records of their work. 

According to her, this involved creating multiple Facebook profiles, one presenting herself as a Shopify expert and another as a store owner she had helped. The fake store owner’s profile would then refer potential clients to the fake expert’s profile, which she also managed.

Despite the long hours she spent “prospecting, getting training, and working,” Ms Oluwaseun struggled to get clients. 

“Two months into the business, I was not seeing any results,” she said. “But the success of my friend, who is also my sponsor, motivated me, and I kept on going.”

Another student, Faithia, a student in the Department of English and Literary Studies at FUOYE, said the journey with NeoLife left her with mixed feelings. 

“It was a bittersweet experience for me,” she said. 

Influenced by her roommate in their first year, she joined the business seeking financial independence. Faithia managed to earn money and even purchased a laptop while balancing her academics alongside the business. 

Faithia also learned and created multiple fake Facebook profiles.

“I had to do this because of the way clients judged me based on my race, although I doubted the authenticity of the method.” 

Her friends described the method as similar to internet fraud. “I created only three accounts, two for store owners and one as the expert.” 

“At a point, I questioned the effort required, and whether the energy would have been better invested in my own business,” she said. “Although I gained skills and some financial benefit, I also faced frustration and doubt.”

Their actions on Facebook and Instagram, both owned by Meta, violate the company’s usage policies.

Meta’s Account Integrity and Authentic Identity policy expressly prohibits impersonation and identity misrepresentation.

“To maintain a safe and open environment where people can trust one another and build community, we do not allow for the creation of accounts or profiles that are created or used to deceive others,” said Meta.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Cybercrime law criminalises the fraudulent impersonation of another person or entity with the intention of gaining advantage or obtaining property. 

Section 22 of the Act stipulates that the offence is punishable by imprisonment for up to five years and a fine of N7 million or both. 

Universities ban groups as FCCPC receives complaints

While students have experiences that reflect broader concerns, several Nigerian universities issued advisories or outright bans on Neolife-FHG activities on campus. 

For instance, the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) and the Emmanuel Alayande University of Education (EAUE) have banned Neolife and FHG’s activities on their campuses. 

FUTA said it reviewed the groups’ recruitment practices and concluded that they were not in students’ best interests. 

The university noted that the groups had created “serious discomfort, fear, unnecessary tension and unwarranted pressure” in the university environment, undermining its academic atmosphere. 

The Emmanuel Alayande University of Education (EAUE) also said the organisation’s activities were humiliating students and impeding their academic progress. 

Meanwhile, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) said it has received a high number of complaints involving fake job recruitment and offers.

An Information Officer at the FCCPC, George Odey, said the commission has partnered with the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to specifically target misleading claims and deceptive advertising practices central to complaints against organisations like NeoLife. 

Mr Odey also encouraged affected students to file formal complaints directly with the FCCPC through its website or mobile app. 

He also advised students to report misleading health or wellness product claims to NAFDAC, which now shares a coordinated complaint channel with the FCCPC. 

He cautioned them to be wary of any opportunity that requires an upfront financial commitment or focuses primarily on recruiting others rather than selling a legitimate product.

Glory Adelowo

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