Think about it: just being in mourning, coping with the loss of a loved one, and all of a sudden, there comes a scam. Unfortunately, this is gradually becoming a reality as fraudsters on Facebook take advantage of families that have lost their loved ones by performing fake live funerals with the intent to defraud them of their hard-earned money and also steal from them their identity.
This, therefore, gives rise to another emerging but rather nasty fraud.
Recently, we’ve noticed a troubling trend: hackers are finding it easy to target bereaved families by conning them into fake live streams of funerals. Scammers are becoming very vibrant, and new ones are creating such unethical behaviors. Where one scam works, others follow like clockwork, and before one knows it, a new flood of scams that will bring misery to vulnerable persons is in the making.
How the Scams Operate
Currently, scammers use two main strategies to lure their victims:
Fake Funeral Live Stream Links: These scams begin with a new post on Facebook as a comment to the actual funeral home notice. The scammer who pretends to have an account with such a social network posts a link saying it has a live funeral broadcast. This link makes people learn to click to ‘watch’ the service, and it will sometimes invite people to forward the link to others. Nevertheless, following this link only takes one to a fake website to acquire users’ details or compromise the devices.
Phony Donation Requests: In another twist, the cons impersonate themselves as bereaved family members, requesting people to contribute to funeral expenses or the family. Such fake pleas usually involve fake images and touching words in an attempt to make the situation seem real; however, the money will end up in the wrong hands—the scammers.
Paying a Closer Look to The Deceptive Plan
This discussion followed one of these scams to see how it goes, but you have to know there are various scams. Here’s what typically happens:
The scam starts with a Facebook post, where the attacker comments on an actual funeral home post. This comment contains a link to the funeral’s so-called live stream.
The link takes me to a website designed to look highly credible and appear to be associated with a streaming site. However, all the buttons on this site lead to another domain, which is, in fact, a phishing site. Malwarebytes Premium, an effective anti-virus tool, turns off at least four domains used by this scam, and others have been closed.
If you follow the link, the next page wants your email so that you can watch the live stream as it says. When you give this, you are directed to a site that states that it has “Your favorite movies”—an evident contrast from the live stream you thought you would watch engagingly.
When you input a fake email address on the site to check the authenticity of the scam, you are encouraged to activate your membership by entering your credit card details. That’s where it starts getting risky.
The Deceptive Membership Trap
At this point, the scam site presents a seemingly innocent explanation for requesting credit card information: to identify your geographical location and meet licensing requirements. According to some membership available to members, the cost was as low as €2. 00, and the users can have the premium mode for free for three days only.
As you’ll soon see, the real coup is the fine print below the form—a pre-ticked checkbox by default. This box allows the site to subscribe you to a “secondary membership,” which leads to regular charging in 14-day intervals, often at a much higher rate (64€ or more). This small print usually goes unnoticed by the victims, who later find themselves trapped in these expensive recurring charges.
Analyzing the Process
Traditional and Technological Scams and the Manipulation of Emotions that Lies at Their Core
Today’s cyber threats are more complex than ever before, as crooks are improving their skills daily. According to the BBC, in March 2024, some of these scammers responded to memorial posts within minutes. This enabled them to use fake identities, and, in most cases, they posted pictures of the deceased as well as their details, such as name and date of birth, taken from funeral directors’ websites or other genuine tribute sites.
Taking actual photographs and using appropriate emotive language in the truck, like Lomography, make it seem like the cons are real. This is so both emotionally and financially concerning to the affected victims.
Ways to Guard You and Your Family
Due to such cons, other funeral homes have resorted to putting notices such as, ‘This funeral is not being live streamed,’ in the obituary notice to avoid the traps. However, there are additional steps you can take to protect yourself and others:
Verify with the Funeral Home: If you received a link for a live funeral stream, you should check with the funeral home directly. The bereaved family will be directed through the rightful channels for the links.
Be Skeptical of Friend Requests: If you receive a notification that someone wants to add you as their friend and you have never seen this person before, be wary of them. Friend requests are an underutilized strategy scammers use to find posts that can lead to many victims.
Report Suspicious Activity: If you find comments with untraceable links underneath a funeral post, you should report them to Facebook. This will help eliminate them faster and prevent others from becoming victims.
Avoid Sharing Credit Card Information: You should only share your credit card details if and only if you are sure that it is genuine. Remember, though, that putting such data on the Web entails certain hazards.
Look Out for Red Flags: It is very important to avoid donating to organizations or causes that you are unaware of. If someone is seeking funds, be it food or money, there is always a way of confirming with the family concerned or with the relevant authority.
Damage control tips that can help Prevent the Spread of Harm in Our Communities
These scamming techniques are more than just deception; they are exploiting the misfortune of many grieving individuals. At Bullzeye Media Marketing, we are all about building trust and safety online. This can be prevented through enhanced awareness of such strategies employed by scammers among society’s members.
Here is a list of Associated Domains:
Fake streaming sites:
Qtvlivestreamhd[.]com
Hqonlivestream[.]xyz
Visitpageaus[.]com
Auseventstream[.]com
Phishing sites:
pbg4jptrk[.]com
paperpadpen[.]com
Remember: always check your links before you click, and do not let fraudsters dupe you or your families during such critical periods. Here, they should remain drilled to be cautious and to ensure that they bring information to the rest of society that will enable the reduction of vulnerability.
In the latest development that we seem to see only on the dark side of the moon, criminals are now preying on people’s emotions, specifically funerals, through fake funeral Facebook live streams and making people victims of fake links and scams. Such scams are exceedingly terrible since they target people in their darkest moments in life in their attempts to call or comfort the families of the deceased.
Bullzeye Media Marketing realizes the effect of such Cyber attacks on the lives of people and companies. This and other scams and phishing attempts are precisely why our hosting and social media management services defend our clients. It describes how we maintain your online profiles; we prevent possible threats before they occur and offer quick response options when required.
If you are worried about the security of your profiles or content on social networks, contact us to find out if you meet the requirements for our protection. Please allow us to assist you in protecting yourself and your family members from all forms of cyber criminals or scam artists.
