pic of funeral scams are making a return

I know I’m still a month out on Mastodon, but this topic that I’m going to write about now is something we’ve covered.

This comes from Brian Krebs. He writes:

BrianKrebs: Someone sent me a note the other day that a funeral service for their late friend was being used to start a new Meta group that claimed to offer live streaming of the service.

But of course, those who clicked the link were sent to fake video streaming websites that try to collect payment information before supposedly letting you watch the service.

A little diggging show that not only are there hundreds of these fake funeral streaming groups, but all of them are tied back to some brainiacs in Bangladesh who naturally exposed their identities and operation by trojaning their own PCs.

What’s crazy is how the fake funeral streaming groups on Meta are just one tiny microcosm of the scams these dudes in Bangladesh are doing.

Also, now I feel like showering after spending a few hours back on Meta. Eww.

This was posted to Mastodon on September 6, 2024.

We’ve blogged about this in a recent blog post. This blog post started it all.

Both of those blog posts came because of Kim Komando.

More recently, Lock and Code came out with a podcast with this topic, and here is the link to grab a copy. (83.5mb) It is well worth the listen, and while this won’t be aired this month during NCSAM, Throwback will eventually bring this up because of how prevalent this new scam is.

As they said, this could be more than Facebook in the future, but they’re calling this the facebook scam for now.

I’ll allow the file to be downloaded for some time, but this podcast is not part of TSB’s podcasts so I’ll expire it at some point down the line.

Don’t worry, the file will be available for several months at least, so pick up your copy while you have the chance to do so. It’ll expire some time in February next year.

Its unfortunate that people are stooping this low just to try and get money out of people.

People are greaving! As stated in the podcast who actually had someone get this scam, they were at the funeral and knew that they weren’t even streaming to the public, but he and others indicate how people can fall for this scam. This is because people we knew as children have moved away to other states, possibly other countries, and we’ve just lost contact with them.

What I’ve done with success, especially if I knew them, was search for them by full name, (first and last) the state they lived in and the word obituary. If there’s a public obituary, we’ll have it as a public link we can read.

Let’s take the JRN’s Janet Quam for example. Someone called me, found me on DiceWorld, and told me of the situation. Then we found an obituary. Janet Quam (August 2023) is the list item you find on MENVI’s links page and that matches the person I was looking for.

With more common names, this tactic may not be successful, but it can help.

Take a deep breath, understand what’s happening if you’re at the funeral, and don’t move too fast.

Its OK to not worry about a funeral if you just want to greave. You can always find out if the funeral was filmed, and if so, you can get it.

In Janet’s case, it was streamed, and a YouTube link was provided to me by Someone I trust which I converted to audio. I’m sure I have it somewhere and maybe I’ll listen to it, maybe it’ll be around for prosparity.

Just be safe with all of this and definitely ask questions to your people that are hosting the thing and make sure you get those links that you need.

Stay Safe, and we’re thinking of you during your difficult time.

Sincerely,
Jared Rimer and team,
The JRN
(804-442-6975 text/WhatsApp
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