After losing their youngest child to brain cancer, the last thing local parents Christie and Brad Rea expected was to be scammed.

Diagnosed with Congenital Glioblastoma at just two weeks old, Imogen Rea was a fighter for her whole life.

In need of support, the couple set up a Facebook page titled ‘Pray for Imogen’ to share updates on their daughter.

Over time, the site garnered more than 11,000 viewers, all sending their love and best wishes to the young family.

Sadly, in January 2024, Imogen passed away at the age of four years and one month at Sydney Children’s Hospital.

“When we were preparing for her funeral, we put up a post stating that the ceremony would be broadcasted,” Christie told the Newcastle Weekly.

It was from this point already unbearable matters took a turn for the worst.

Shortly after Christie’s initial post, a series a fake profiles and pages were created, using photos posted on ‘Pray for Imogen’.

The false accounts sent friend requests to various members of the Facebook page, as well as some of Christie’s close family and friends, asking them to subscribe to a fake page where the funeral would allegedly be broadcasted.

“We were being told about this by people… and we tried to report it to Facebook,” she said.

“Sometimes they would get taken down, but more would pop up.

“We couldn’t even keep track of it.

“There ended up being so many that we had to put a public post up stating that we weren’t asking people for money.”

Disturbingly, it’s become more prevalent recently that scammers are still exploiting online farewells and funeral live streams, targeting grieving mourners with fake invitations, requests for payment to attend, and demands for donations, often through social media, posing as family members or funeral homes.

For the Reas, they felt helpless knowing the loss of their child was being used against them for monetary gain.

“It was really traumatising to see her photo being splashed around and being used to try and scam people out of money,” Christie said.

“These people they were targeting cared about our family and cared about Imogen.

“It was a quite upsetting thing to think about on top of what we were already distressed about, having lost a child and organising a funeral.”

According to Christie, one particular page advertised a date several days earlier than the scheduled ceremony to force people to pay out of a sense of urgency, in fears they might miss out.

“It made me angry that someone could be so out of touch with humanity to take advantage of a situation where people would be clearly devastated, traumatised and upset,” she said.

“I found it quite traumatic to see Imogen’s photo being put up without our permission and used in a way that was pretty disgusting, considering that we were a family that had just lost a child.

“The posts were labelled with her name, and with a false time, but they had picture of another person’s funeral instead of her photo, including one of an adult-sized coffin.

“As grieving parents of a small child, one of the heartbreaking things we were forced to do was pick out a really tiny coffin for our little girl.

“So, it was another slap in the face.

“The whole thing was awful to experience at such a broken and vulnerable time.

“It was trauma on top of trauma.”

Christie said she was not aware of anyone falling for the scams… or who the culprits may have been.

But, she and her family weren’t the only ones affected.

“I did see it happen a number of other times to other people,” Christie explained.

“It makes me wonder whether they’re following funeral director pages and using that as a way to find these things out.

“The reason I think they get away with it is because it’s happening to a family at a time that is already overwhelming.

“You don’t have time to follow things up like that.”

Despite solutions to the reoccurring issue being unclear, Christie said action needed to be taken immediately.

“I really think something should be done because it’s taking advantage of families in a really vulnerable time when they’re already heartbroken and probably not able to do much about it,” she added.

“Awareness is a good way to prevent people from being scammed.

“I don’t think it would stop the scammers, but it would probably help people to not get tricked.”

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