Avoid putting funeral details on social media to prevent scams warns industry expert

Earlier this week we told the heartbreaking story of an Alexandria family who had their service targeted by con-artists, who set up a fake Facebook page claiming to carry a stream of a service that looked to charge grieving friends and family.

Grieving families should avoid putting funeral service details on social media, to avoid being targeted by heartless scammers with fake livestreams - according to an industry expert.

Earlier this week we told the heartbreaking story of an Alexandria family who had their service targeted by con-artists, who set up a fake Facebook page claiming to carry a stream of a service that looked to charge grieving friends and family.

Heather Rodger urged residents to be on their guard after cruel fraudsters attempted to dupe mourners into donating and paying to watch a fake livestream of her husband David’s funeral service.

A Facebook page created by the scammers used a photograph of loving dad David, taken from a post made by daughter Sammie, and contacted his loved ones to ask for money ahead of the funeral earlier this month.

Heather said: “My family and I are devastated that there are scammers out there taking advantage of families at their worst moments.

“Throughout the whole organising of David’s funeral from his death, this has been the most upsetting of all, to think my family and friends could be scammed to part with money.”

A genuine livestream of the service was available, but wasn’t shared publicly and was only available to family and friends.

It was organised by Patrick Bullen of Glasgow-based We Stream It, and he warned families to avoid sharing details of services on social media - whilst calling on funeral directors to do more to warn of the risks.

Patrick told the Lennox: “This scam is becoming very common unfortunately. You read about these situations quite frequently in the press and talking with funeral directors, it’s reaching epidemic proportions.

“The key steps to avoid being targeted are quite simple. Do not post any information publicly on social media.

“A quick search of the keywords ‘funeral Dumbarton October’ throws up lots of information that can be instantly used to scam people on a number of posts.

“Multiply this across all crematoriums, churches and areas in the UK and you have reams of source material for scammers.

“Funeral notices online, although they are a great way of getting information out to friends and families, are also a treasure trove to scammers.

“People also need to realise that the information given out at a funeral can be used for fraudulent purposes. We create private pages that you need a link to view, unfortunately we are seeing services posted and streamed to social media pages and advertised on websites.

“Some churches livestream funeral services to social media and anyone can watch. During a eulogy, scammers can learn names, addresses, dates of birth, children’s names, even pet names.

“This can and will be used for scams, leaving families to try and deal with issues sometimes weeks or months later which will be very distressing.

“We’d urge people to never advertise the stream link publicly and never stream to a public page.”

And Patrick hopes to see more action from funeral directors, to avoid more pain at an already difficult time - having been inspired to launch his business after a heartbreaking experience during his own mother’s service.

He explained: “The people dealing directly with the families of the bereaved are in the ideal place to communicate and highlight this problem.

“Many funeral directors we work with do this already on a small scale. Large companies could implement a digital safety guide section on their websites or include advice on literature they hand out.

“I set my company up after my mum passed away at the start of the pandemic.

“We were not allowed to attend her funeral and the livestream set up by the church failed. This was one of the most distressing situations I have ever experienced so I set up my company to help other people so they wouldn’t have to go through the same emotions.

“I can’t even imagine how upsetting getting targeted by scammers would be while trying to deal with what will already be a very difficult time.

“The most distressing thing about it personally is that it is very easy to reduce the opportunities the scammers have by not publishing details publicly.

“We shouldn’t have to do it but unfortunately it is the only way to reduce the risks.”

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