With the pandemic, a lot of things moved to getting livestreamed. For many of us, this is great - you can attend events all over the world from the comfort of your living room. Funerals were one of those things that got livestreamed for the very obvious reason of not having a lot of people being in one place in relatively close quarters.

The Funeral Streaming scam is so named because the scammers tend to target people in mourning (who may not be thinking clearly). It’s often set up on Facebook or a similar social media site, and directs you off that site to another video streaming site.

Once there, the site requests credit card information to verify that they are licensed to stream in your area. This of course turns into a repeated billing. The scammers might even ask for donations to add insult to injury.

How to protect yourself
You should never have to pay to view a funeral. Any streaming charges for funeral services should have been paid for by the family or the business handling the funeral (which would have been paid by the family.

If you are not sure, reach out to the place the funeral is being held.

For those who are dealing with this and a deceased family member: first of all, sorry for your loss. Scammers pull this on Facebook because the site is nortorious for not dealing with abuse reports. If you have family/friends on Facebook that you wish to inform of the funeral, you might want to create a private group instead.