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The lawsuit against Elizabeth "Liz" Friesen, WiFi Money and others a part of the alleged scheme seeks to recover funds taken from Nebraska consumers and to put a stop to the deceptive and unfair business practices.

Attorney General Mike Hilgers said the influencers manufactured lavish lifestyles on Instagram in order to lure consumers into a stream of schemes "doomed to fail," then divvied up the money among themselves despite the schemes' total failures.

"These highly deceptive 'passive income' schemes will not be tolerated in Nebraska under my watch. Our Office will fight hard to get Nebraskans’ hard-earned money back and hold bad actors to account," he said in a news release. 

In the lawsuit filed in Lancaster County District Court, Assistant Attorney General Derek Bral said at least 60 Nebraskans fell victim to the scheme, paying tens of thousands of dollars to set up and manage e-commerce stores on Amazon and , resulting in millions in lost savings.

He said each lost at least $15,000, and several lost more than $100,000.

Bral said in the fall of 2019 WiFi Money recruited Friesen to be an "affiliate" and trained her to recruit Nebraska consumers to pay large sums of cash for the "paid to live" services the business promoted.

He said she "personally spearheaded much of the harm to Nebraska consumers," by making misleading and deceptive claims and misrepresenting her own success and finances, flaunting a high-end and wealthy persona online. 

Bral said after taking money from Nebraska consumers, the defendants spent the money on luxury vacations, expensive cars and mansions, jewelry and designer clothes to lure more consumers into their schemes.

"Defendants concealed the fact that their lifestyles were being financed by millions in lost savings from consumers nationwide, including many consumers in Nebraska," he alleged in the suit.

The scheme involves an online sales technique known as "dropshipping," where a business or individual opens an online store and lists items for sale, buys items from third-party retailers and has the item shipped directly to consumers.

The buyer pays a higher price for the item than the so-called dropshipper, and the dropshipper pockets the difference.

According to the lawsuit, the "gurus" whom consumers paid to "manage" stores often violated Amazon’s and ’s policies, leading to mass suspensions and deactivations of the consumers' accounts.

In addition to refunds, the Attorney General's Office is asking a judge to order them to stop the schemes, reimburse the state for its legal fees and pay civil penalties, among other relief.