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There’s a new scheme that involves imposters preying on people who are grieving the loss of a loved one. The imposters pretend to be from the funeral home and say that, unless the family pays more money immediately, the funeral will be canceled. Can you imagine anything more despicable? That’s why we want to alert members of the funeral industry about the scam and hope other businesses will warn their employees and people in their community.  

If there was a Scammers Hall of Shame, this one would make the Top 10 List, without question. Here’s how to spot and avoid this scam:

Resist the pressure to act immediately.  Honest businesses will give you time to make a decision. Anyone who pressures you to pay or give them your personal information is a scammer.

Contact the funeral home directly.  Use a phone number that you know is real, not one you got from the scammer’s text, email, or phone call.  If you don’t know it, you’ll find it on the General Price List you got from the funeral home.

Know how scammers tell you to pay. Scammers want to get your money immediately, and in a way that makes it hard to track them down and hard for you to get your money back. Never pay someone who insists you pay with a wire transfer, cryptocurrency, or a gift card. And never deposit a check and send money back to someone.

If someone tried to rip you off, report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
 

It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.

The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.

  • We won’t post off-topic comments, repeated identical comments, or comments that include sales pitches or promotions.
  • We won’t post comments that include vulgar messages, personal attacks by name, or offensive terms that target specific people or groups.
  • We won’t post threats, defamatory statements, or suggestions or encouragement of illegal activity.
  • We won’t post comments that include personal information, like Social Security numbers, account numbers, home addresses, and email addresses. To file a detailed report about a scam, go to ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.

San Diego Hill…
June 20, 2023

Thank you for the information you wrote. we from the cemetery san diego hills memorial park Indonesia will always be careful.

the person who cheats for the bereaved family is utterly devoid of empathy

hopefully in the future it won't happen

Deniece Leistner
June 20, 2023

They just called my dad yesterday and I contacted the person with the funeral home directly. It is really happening right here in our hometown.

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