This Shameful Scam Targets People Grieving Lost Loved Ones

Losing a loved one is a terrible experience in any situation. There’s often legal paperwork to take care of, a will to execute, an estate to settle, and a funeral to arrange. And that’s all on top of all the grief and pain of the loss. It’s a painful, exhausting time in your life. The only thing worse than grieving a departed loved one is experiencing that loss and then going through an additional emotional roller coaster of losin money to a funeral home scam.

Scammers strategy of targeting vulnerable people and stealing from them through deception is already shameful. But now they’re sinking to new lows. With funeral home scams, they target people grieving lost loved ones and claim issues with that loved one’s final rest to steal money. If there were a list of the most cruel and evil scams, this one would have to be near the top.

Why Scammers Love Funeral Home Scams

Funeral home scams work great for scammers, for a few reasons. One is that the formula for a successful scam needs you to get emotional. When you’re grieving a loved one, you are already dealing with a lot of emotions. It only takes a tiny push for a scammer to send your emotions into the stratosphere – and your critical thinking out the window.

Another reason is that it’s extremely easy to identify targets and get information about them. When someone dies, their obituary often appears online, in a local newspaper, or both. And obituaries often contain the names of the deceased’s living relatives, as well as what city they live in. With your name and city, it’s incredibly easy for scammers to get your phone number from a data broker or people search site. Then all they have to do is call you and claim to be from the funeral home (whose name they also got from the obituary). The fact that they have this information convinces many people that they’re legitimate – even though the information is freely available online.

The third and final reason is that losing a loved one is a disruptive, emotional, stressful time in your life. Many people have studied what makes someone likely to get caught in a scam. It’s not age, gender, education, or socioeconomic status. It’s often not even about how clever the scammer’s story is or how much work they put into making it look real. The biggest thing that makes you more likely to get caught in a scam is a recent major life event. And losing a loved one absolutely counts. So not only it it easy for scammers to identify targets for funeral scams and stir up their emotions, they are more likely to get caught in it.

How Funeral Home Scams Work

Funeral home scams are cruel and despicable, but they are often not complicated. It usually takes only one phone call. The scammer calls their target and claims to be with the funeral home. There’s something wrong with the funeral, the burial, the cremation, or the paperwork. You need to pay a deposit for insurance purposes or put down a large payment to secure the funeral service or cremation. The funeral home was double-booked and you need to pay up front if you want your loved one’s funeral to happen.

Scammers can come up with a huge variety of stories for funeral home scams. But they all come down to the same thing: There’s a problem. If the problem isn’t resolved, the funeral, cremation, burial, or something else won’t happen or will go against your or the deceased’s wishes. And the whole problem can go away if you just pay this fee or make this deposit. But you have to act now, because if it isn’t resolved immediately they won’t be able to help anymore.

Once you pay, the scammer will promise that the problem will be resolved and end the call. Any money you sent through any method will be gone. And your loved one’s service and burial or cremation will proceed as expected because there was never a problem in the first place.

How to Spot a Funeral Home Scam

With so many different stories and excuses out there, it can be hard to say that this story or that story is definitely a scam. But there are some ways you can tell funeral home scams apart from legitimate funeral home calls and funeral matters. Here are some tips.

Know the Rules

This is a tip you can put into action in advance. Know what’s required of funerals, funeral homes, burials, and cremations before you’re put on the spot. Scammers may try to confuse you or prove their legitimacy by spouting “regulations.” Don’t be baffled by it. Know what goods and services are required, which you can choose or skip, and what kind of fees you should have to pay. Having this information in advance will help you identify that something doesn’t sound right over the phone. The FTC Funeral Rule is a good place to start.

Pressure is Suspicious

A legitimate funeral home knows you’re grieving and that this is a difficult, confusing, and stressful time for you. Though funerals often come together on a very short timetable, there are very few things that truly cannot wait. And those urgent things are generally decisions, not payments. If anyone is pressuring you to send money immediately because this payment absolutely cannot wait, it’s probably a scam.

Legitimate Businesses Don’t Threaten

Genuine funeral homes make money from you choosing to let them help memorialize your lost loved one. Making threats is not a great way to bring in more customers. And, again, they work with grieving people all the time and know that this is a difficult time. No legitimate funeral home will ever threaten you with anything if you don’t send money immediately. Depending on the situation, they may have to reschedule a funeral service or take other action if payment isn’t received in a certain time frame. But if you get any call claiming you must pay now or there will be terrible consequences for the funeral service or your loved one’s burial or cremation, it’s a funeral home scam.

Hang Up and Call Back

It is very easy for criminals to spoof phone numbers. So even though caller ID may come up with the correct funeral home number, it doesn’t mean it’s really the funeral home calling. If you think there’s something about the call that’s weird, or if you just want to verify it’s really the funeral home calling, hang up and call back. It’s very important not to hit the “call back” button or call back from your call history, but instead type in the number, get it off the funeral home’s website, or call from your contacts if you have the number saved. That way you can be sure you’re getting the real funeral home on the line.

Beware Unusual Payment Methods

The average legitimate funeral home will take multiple methods of payment. Cash, credit card, and check are all legitimate options. If your loved one had funeral insurance, the funeral home may also be able to bill that insurance company. Some may even take ACH payments directly from your bank account. But scammers want money in a method that’s instant, untraceable, and irreversible. These include peer-to-peer payment apps like Venmo and Cashapp, wire transfers, cryptocurrencies, and gift cards.

No legitimate company will accept payment in another company’s gift cards, and very few accept payment apps or cryptocurrency. And all legitimate businesses should have multiple options for payment. If the funeral home tells you that you have to pay a certain way, or if their only options are methods you couldn’t use to buy a candy bar at your local drugstore, it’s a funeral home scam.

What to Do if You Encounter a Funeral Home Scam

If you realize while you’re on the phone that you’ve encountered a funeral home scam, hang up the phone immediately. (No need to worry about being rude – you have no obligation to be polite to someone trying to steal from you!) Take some deep breaths. Nothing is wrong with your loved one’s funeral arrangements, you’ve just encountered a scam.

If you sent money to the scammer, report it to the place you sent the money from as soon as possible. Depending on the method the scammer wanted, that could be your bank, a wire transfer company, within an app, or calling the number on the back of the gift card. Tell them it was fraud and ask if they can stop the transaction. If you report it quick enough, they may be able to stop it. At the very least, they can investigate.

Regardless of whether or not you sent money, you can report the scam to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov and/or the FBI at ic3.gov. This will help give these organizations data about what kind of scams are happening and how often. And it can help law enforcement trace and catch the scammers.

Finally, don’t be ashamed if a funeral home scam made you emotional or if you lost money. Grief has been shown to make even smart, aware people more susceptible to scams. It’s the scammer’s fault for committing the crime, not yours for being the victim. Look for emotional support, whether that’s friends who will listen or a licensed therapist. Being a crime victim on top of grieving can compound everything you’re dealing with. Additional support can help you get through it.