How to avoid social media funeral stream scams
We are aware of recent media reports about scammers targeting bereaved families on social media with a fake funeral stream scam. As the UK’s leading supplier of streaming services for funerals, we want to offer some guidance and information to support families and the bereavement professionals we work with.
What’s happening
As we understand it, fraudulent social media pages are sending friend requests and falsely advertising that they offer live streams of funerals -requesting payment from mourners to access the fake “stream”.
The fraud has no apparent pattern in its selection of funerals to mimic – some are at funeral venues that have a genuine streaming provider, while others are at venues that don’t offer streaming. This means it’s a scam that could target any funeral, not necessarily those that have requested a genuine live stream.
It's deplorable that they are trying to take advantage of people at such a vulnerable time. We want to clearly outline how funeral streaming works for our users in the UK and help people recognise scam activity.
Avoiding scams - things to be aware of
Obitus will never ask viewers for payment to watch a Live Stream or Service Recording.
As an official provider of funeral streaming services, we would never ask mourners to enter credit card details or personal information to access a genuine stream. Live Streams are booked by bereavement professionals such as Funeral Directors and Officiants who work directly with the family member planning the funeral.
Obitus does not take money directly from a family member organising a funeral.
We work with the Crematorium and Funeral Directors involved in a funeral service, and not the family or wider group of mourners. If a family chooses to have a live stream service, the Funeral Director will discuss and agree this directly with the family member who is planning the funeral and any live stream fee would be included as part of the funeral costs. This means that individual mourners would never be charged to access a stream.
Watch out for suspicious links
Once a Live Stream is booked, our secure, unique log in details are generated and provided to the Funeral Director, who send them to the family member planning the funeral. All Obitus Live Streams and On Demand Recordings are accessed only via https://watch.obitus.com/. Once the family member has the unique login details for the Live Stream, they can share them with other mourners directly.
The security and privacy of families is paramount to us
Our systems and services offer a secure, private platform for our users, and we are continuously investing in this technology Each service we deliver has unique log in details provided only to the Funeral Arranger working with the family. We do not give out log in details to any family members or mourners directly, and any requests must go to the Funeral Arranger who has booked the service.
Our streaming technology is hard-wired into the Crematoriums and Chapels that we work with and monitored daily by our Tech Support team. Our bereavement professional users also have full visibility to book, change and check Live Streaming service details.
How to tell if a funeral stream link is legitimate
We understand that funeral streaming has become more popular in the past decade, and not everyone has come across it before. With this in mind, we have created a helpful checklist to help users determine if a funeral live stream service is legitimate.
The family member or official Funeral Director has directly shared the link and password with you. If it’s an Obitus-supplied service, the link should always be https://watch.obitus.com/
The webpage does not ask you to supply any personal information or payment information and gives you free access to the Live Stream or Service Recording.
If you are in any doubt of the legitimacy of a funeral Live Stream, please contact the official Funeral Arranger, or the Funeral Venue with your concerns.
We’re here to support our partners and the families we serve. If you have any questions or need reassurance, please get in touch with us at cs@obitus.com or call us on 03333 447 440.