We impersonated a restaurant on Glovo and Chowdeck; the platforms never noticed
We created a fake restaurant on Glovo and Chowdeck using a made-up tax ID, a false address, and photos stolen from a real Lagos restaurant. Within a few weeks, we had a device, completed onboarding training, and made a sale.
<br />
In December 2025, a food vendor, Corporate Ewa, posted a video on social media drawing attention to several live stores on the Glovo app that were impersonating her business. She claimed that although she never registered her business on Glovo, these fake accounts lifted images from her company’s official social media pages and impersonated her business on the Glovo platform.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
That complaint, shared publicly on X, prompted Techpoint Africa to investigate the vetting process for restaurants allowed to operate on Nigeria’s food delivery platforms, like Glovo and Chowdeck.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
We impersonated a Nigerian restaurant, set up a store, and successfully made a sale on both platforms. The goal was to review the platforms’ vendor registration and onboarding process and determine how easy it would be to set up a store impersonating another business/brand on the platforms.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Glovo<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Step 1: The registration process<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
We began by identifying a business to impersonate. The chosen business needed to be prominent enough that a simple Google search would immediately bring up useful information to raise red flags on our application.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
To meet this criterion, we chose a restaurant with at least four prominent locations in Lagos state that was not registered on Glovo. To sign up as a vendor on Glovo, we were required to provide the business name, location, tax ID, and banking details. We filled out the required details and registered the company under a fake address unrelated to or in proximity to any of the real company’s branches.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Although the restaurant’s actual locations were provided as options when entering the store’s name and address, we were allowed to override them and enter our chosen address.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
A screenshot from Glovo’s vendor registration page<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Next, we were required to provide the company’s tax ID and legal business name. We created a tax ID using random numbers in the typical Nigerian tax ID format.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
A screenshot from Glovo’s vendor registration page<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Glovo did not...
