I recently came across an article from TV 6 in Richmond, Virginia, about funeral crowdfunding being set up for a relative through GoFundMe when the family noticed that another account for the deceased had already been set up.  The family became uneasy about it and asked TV 6 to investigate.

Turns out that the first GoFundMe page was set up by someone who believed they were just doing a good deed for the family.  However, suspicions seemed to abound.  In the end, however, the woman who created the first account suspended it without raising any donations.

Funeral Director Daily take:  We’ve heard of some families going to crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe to help raise money for funerals. We see nothing wrong with that, although, as funeral practitioners we believe that families should be able to fund funerals or cremations without those sites.  Maybe it is more a commentary on Americans and their savings and spending habits that really needs to be visited.

However, this short news story that we discovered brings in a whole new aspect to crowdfunding for funerals and cremations.  Could it be that some people are setting up sites for the donations with no intent of ever giving the money over for the cost of services?  That is something that came to our minds when we saw this article – where a crowdfunding site had been established already without knowledge of the family.

We are not experts on this subject, but this may be something that you should keep in mind and alert client families to.

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