Funerals are never to be taken lightly, which makes it all the worse that there are people out there willing to use these events to scam those in grief. Recently, Facebook has seen many groups that supposedly offer links to streamed funerals in exchange for credit card data, with different events being added more recently.
Let’s break down these scams and establish how to avoid them in your own life.
Scammers Claim They Provide Livestreams to Funerals
We’ve all lost someone important to us in the past, and there may have been times when we could not make it to their services or celebration of life. Scammers have realized this and are now creating Facebook pages that purportedly offer access to a stream of the event.
For instance, let’s pretend Bob P. Example recently passed away. Using the information about his planned services, a scammer can set up a Facebook group that shares the time of the events and offers to stream the services. These pages then divert those wishing to remember a loved one to an external website, where they are asked for their credit card information and—in some particularly ghoulish situations—donations in honor of the deceased.
I can’t be sure, but I’d be willing to bet that Bob would rather his loved ones keep their money and remember him as they can.
Multiple Outlets Have Spotted These Scams
Cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs, of KrebsOnSecurity, shared that many of the links that these events pushed would go to domains referencing streaming in some way.
MalwareBytes Labs also found plenty of examples of this kind of scam, many leading to websites that required a sign-in to “watch your favorite movies.” I don’t know about you, but that’s not how I would describe someone’s streamed funeral. Once the sign-in process is complete, MalwareBytes found that the sites would then ask for credit card information, supposedly to verify that the user was in a country the site could stream to. Interestingly, hidden on the page was a preselected button authorizing a second membership and doubling the payments.
How to Keep Yourself and Others From Being Scammed
First, you should always check the website a funeral home allegedly hosting a live-streamed service maintains. Many have begun posting that funerals are not being live streamed, making this kind of disclosure to fight this very threat.
Second, you should never provide credit card details unless you are certain where your money is going. It also helps to keep some advice from the UK’s National Association of Funeral Directors in mind:
“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.”
