In July, the NAFD worked with BBC Breakfast to highlight the issue of scammers posting links to fraudulent funeral service live streams on social media. NAFD member Edd Frost, of Edd Frost & Daughters in Oxfordshire supported the story with an interview and by introducing one of his affected client families to the BBC. The story highlighted NAFD advice which is also being shared on social media.
The NAFD has spent a lot of time engaging with a number of media outlets to try and raise awareness of the scams, giving interviews and offering statements to variety of outlets, in addition to BBC Breakfast, including BBC News, ITV News, Radio 4 Money Box, Look North, Daily Mail, Daily Record and Belfast Telegraph. We have conducted broadcast and print interviews and also issued statements to the press. The NAFD has also created a social media graphic which has been sent to members for their own use.
The NAFD offers the following advice to funeral directors:
- We recommend that you make client families aware of these scams, particularly if they are posting any information online about funeral arrangements.
- You could suggest to clients that they advise friends and relatives that any livestream link or fundraising page details will be provided directly by them or by the funeral director – they should check whether any link they do come across is legitimate before engaging with it.
- You may wish to put some general information on your website or social media pages too.
- You can report a Facebook page or link to Meta – in our experience they do not respond, but is the volume of complaints is large enough it may force them to act.