Grieving families targeted in heartless scam selling fake access to funeral live-streams
The scammer is believed to be trawling through obituary notices in newspapers and on social media posts to sell fake access to funerals streamed over the internet, charging €10 a time to view the ceremonies online.
These heartless criminals have easy access to publicly available death notices, and they create fake Facebook profiles, posing as family or friends of the recently deceased. Pic: Shutterstock
They then contact potential mourners to offer them links to a fake 'live stream' of a funeral for about ten euro, but after paying the money, the victims find they cannot log on.
The fraudsters will also often ask you to support a fake 'donation page' they say has been set up on behalf of the deceased person's family, using trusted charity platforms, to make friends of the deceased believe they are contributing to a cause which had been close to the heart of the person who has passed on.
Any donations are then pocketed by the scammers. Pic: Getty Images
A UK based humanist celebrant Halde Pottinger, discovered the fraud after his own brother died, when he received FIVE fake invitations to watch the funeral online, despite having attended his brother's funeral in person, and the ceremony NOT being streamed online.
Mr Pottinger says 'They waited until an hour before my brothers funeral, a time when people are at their most vulnerable' – He then saw five different accounts offering access to a 'Live-stream' of the funeral, and sickeningly the invitations included photos and details of his brothers funeral. Pic: Shutterstock
Online funerals became common during the Covid pandemic, when ceremonies were often streamed over the internet because social distancing rules meant it wasn't possible for all family and friends to attend in person.
The British Chartered Trading Standards Institute says that over the past few years they have seen an increase in this sort of 'disturbing scam'.
Katherine Hart, from the CTSI, says, 'Targeting people during one of the most emotionally difficult moments of their lives is despicable. It is particularly upsetting as victims often feel they cannot report what is happening for fear of adding further stress to grieving families. The criminals count on their silence.'
Halde Pottinger added, 'It is sick and disgusting. The more tragic a death, such as if someone dies young, a suicide or the death occurred in particularly unexpected circumstances – then the more it seems to attract scammers, and fewer people will come forward to admit they have been swindled'.
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