Money Scam Involving Funeral Services On-Line

A Facebook post shares a link to the live stream of a funeral service, or to a fundraising page set up by the family of the deceased. Clicking on that takes you to a separate page where it asks for your card details, and explains there is a £10 fee to watch the virtual funeral, or requests a donation. You make the payment but nothing happens. That’s because it’s a scam, with the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) recently sounding the alarm over a disturbing type of fraud that sees victims share personal information, or tricked into transferring money. Katherine Hart, the CTSI’s lead officer for doorstep crime, says: “It’s hard to imagine a more callous form of fraud.”

Advertisements

Virtual funerals became common during the Covid pandemic and continue to be popular, as they allow friends and relatives who can’t attend in person to pay their respects. But they have become a target for online scammers who often home in on deaths that have been in the media, or those of young people, as they know there will be a lot of public interest. The National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD) says the scam has been circulating for two years and is happening across the UK and Ireland. As many victims do not report what has happened, it is hard to gauge the number of cases, but the trade body says that anecdotally they continue to rise.

How it works

Fraudsters are scanning publicly available funeral notices and creating fake Facebook profiles, posing as family members or friends of the deceased, according to the CTSI. The criminals then contact mourners with bogus links to funeral live streams that demand payment, or set up fake donation pages, often on trusted fundraising platforms. Sometimes they send friend requests to people connected to the original site which, if they accept, can give them access to their photographs and details. After clicking on the live stream link, mourners are prompted to pay. The fake link then causes heartbreak as the individual may be missing a genuine live stream, but is also upset by the fact that they have given their card details to a scammer.

Soucre: The Guardian