You should never be asked to pay to watch a funeral livestream
There has been a rise in a worrying trend of fraudsters targeting bereaved people in a range of funeral Facebook scams.
How does the scam work?
The scam, like a lot of them, preys on vulnerable people and those who are an easy target.
It’s very simple; scammers take genuine funeral information from the internet and post links to a supposed livestream of the funeral, asking for credit card details to secure the “booking”. Once people enter the details, their card details are in the hands of fraudsters which can then cause significant financial loss to the card holder.
There are other tactics. These scammers set up fake profiles and send friends requests to those close to the deceased person, often asking for money for fundraising campaigns or donations that don’t exist. They even publish complete pages claiming to be a legitimate tribute page.
The problem is, these fake links and pages look so real. They often copy and paste real photographs of the deceased person taken from a funeral director’s site or a genuine tribute site. The pages and posts look real, but they are not – and could have severe consequences for those who engage with them.
Watching the livestream of a funeral service is free of charge – you should never be asked for payment. Any livestream or fundraising links will be provided by the funeral director to the bereaved family, so please always check any links or pages with the family or funeral director first – and never accept friend/page follow requests, or click links, without checking them out first.