Echovita Reports & Reviews

Echovita Reports & Reviews (103)

Victim Location 74055
Total money lost $9.99
Type of a scam Online Purchase

My elderly mother searched online (using the AOL homepage search bar) for a recently deceased friend's obituary. The first search return was for a website called Echovita.com. This website claims to host obituaries from North America, Canada and New Zealand. In reality, the website steals obituary data from the authorized funeral home websites and copies it onto their own website. They then charge fees for services that are intangible and free on the real, authorized obituary websites. My mother wanted to "light a candle" with her sympathy message. After entering in her information and message, she was then told she would have to pay to light this virtual candle, and given different dollar amounts for the length of time this imaginary candle stays "lit" online. She ended up paying to have the candle lit for 1 month, at a cost of $9.99. The family of the deceased never see the message, never see the candle, and the user is told to "share it with them" via a link they email once they complete the transaction. They also charge for other services, such as planting trees in honor of the deceased, that can never be verified as actually being done.

The website preys on the grieving family members who unknowingly access the incorrect obituary site, and especially those who do not have extensive online knowledge...such as the elderly. In researching this company, it seems they could be the same company that lost a lawsuit in 2019 for the exact same practice, but under a different website named Afterlife.com.

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Hi,
Firstly, if your mother is not satisfied with the service received, you can contact us for a refund, and we would provide her with one. Secondly, there are many lies you shared, so I'd like give my rebuttal. You said, we copy and pastee obituaries to our website, which is a lie. We only further share the basic facts of publicly available obituaries, and photos and original obituary text is only shared when given direct permission by the family. You said the family "never sees the message and never sees the candle", however, when we recognize that there has been multiple unshared messages or tributes, we notify the funeral home of the deceased. Yes, we have a memorial tree-planting service and flowers can be purchased, and there is proof that these services are actually being done. When memorial trees are planted, a certificate is sent to the person who planted the memorial trees from the tree-planting service we are affiliated with. When flowers are purchased, the user can either select the service they would like the flowers to be delivered to or provide a delivery address of where they would lke the flowers to be sent. Flower orders are processed by Blooms Today and fulfilled by local florists.

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These Echovita folks seem to be bottom feeder scammer types that harvest posted obituary information on their own site in the hope of getting direct service and advertising revenue by driving clicks on their site. They claim, and may actually believe, that they are providing a service, but I never asked these dirtbags to get involved as an intermediary for my family's personal affairs. Echovita support, don't waste time rationalizing what you do. You are ghouls that are feeding off of the loss of our loved ones to to turn a buck.

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+11

This website is a fraud. They publish unauthorized inaccurate obituary information in an attempt to extort money from unwitting readers. I will find them and stop this.

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+11

That is completely false. Scroll down and read our reply to Paul.

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I am a funeral director in Rochester, NY. This website harvests information and pieces together a death notice. The information is inaccurate and then families call the funeral home asking why this company has the listing so wrong. The gentleman was born in Belarus and it mentioned his mother was born in Brooklyn. Their algorithms pieced a very wrong death notice. They pulled from the biography information that mentioned the words Yiddish and Stalin and this is how they listed his survivors:
"He is survived by : his wife Luiza Semyonovna Berenbaum; his children, Vera Zelikovna Berenbaum and Robert Zelikovich Berenbaum; his brother Ken; and also, Russianized', Stalin and Yiddish."
- STAY AWAY FROM THIS WEBSITE. It's a scam.

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+11

Our website is not a scam. Mistakes can happen and there are plenty of examples of funeral homes making mistakes themselves. If you contacted us directly about this mistake, it was dealt with in a timely manner. We take mistakes seriously and work diligently in improving our platform. There have been numerous times when families have made corrections to their loved ones' obituaries on our platform, and did not realize that the funeral home shared inaccurate details originally resulting in them having to contact the funeral home after. Funeral homes have also released obituaries and death notices very frequently without permission from the family and they were only informed because of Echovita.

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Like so many others have mentioned, my mother's obituary was harvested from the ONLY website we allowed to have it posted. The date was even posted inaccurately and the amount of confusion and additional grief this has caused my family is inexcusable and I am pursuing this with the attorney general's office immediately. This practice is predatory, and clearly for profit and I absolutely dare anyone from Echovita to have the balls to say otherwise. Anyone wishing to take action against these scammers should. As a class, I think any number of us could band together and sue them to the point of bankruptcy.
They say that when they are made aware of any mistakes or the family wishes to have a posting removed, that they do it immediately. Don't believe it... I reached out to them about this and even gave them my phone number to contact me and no one has yet had the stones to do so.

Only alternative now is to file charges.

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Hi Joe,
You sent us an email on Friday, July 2 at 4:05p.m., we removed the obituary and replied to you on July 4 at 7:47a.m. You then responded to our reply once again requesting to remove the obituary in question, which had already been done.

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The Echovita website enabled me to gather otherwise unavailable information on close family members and it has an easily accessible platform that does not severely edit or filter newly uploaded, sometimes important, information. Many of the traditional websites are closed to new information. "Of the dead, nothing but good" may be a time honored ancient maxim but today people want "just the facts, ma'me."

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They have published my mother Elizabeth Bowden Hanson’s obituary on their web site! I am her only son and am the only one who is allowed to give anyone permission to publish anything about my deceased mother! Greg Boyd

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This website takes obituaries from other funeral company and publish them on their own website, leading people to believe that they can buy flowers or leave messages directly to the family, but it is never delivered since it's not the same company. This scam is illegal in the US probably also in Canada (The owner of the website has lost in court in Ontario regarding this matter with another similar website (afterlife) that has been taking down since).

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That is 100% correct. They recently posted an obituary from a friend that was never posted anywhere but the funeral home website. They lie and say that they only post "publicly" available information. They do admit that harvesting information solely from funeral homes would be illegal, I have pictures of what they posted and proof that the only place it was available was on the funeral homes website. I went to order flowers for my friend as the funeral home flowers were very costly and I thought this was an alternative. I am happy that I researched first. Scammers!

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Hi Paul,
We thought you'd like to actually know Echovita's truth, since clearly you have been mislead. Echovita does not "take obituaries from other funeral companies and publish them on their own website", as you stated. That would be illegal. Echovita further shares basic facts from publicly announced deaths that have been shared online. This is entirely legal. Some funeral homes try to claim that they are the owner of these facts, which is ridiculous to say the least. Echovita is not a "funeral company". It is a free, online obituary and memorial page platform that informs society of who has passed away. We organize obituaries by city, so that users can be easily informed of who has passed away in their area. People used to inform themselves of who has passed away by picking up a newspaper, but it's now 2021 and people haven't been picking up a newspaper in years. The internet has many advantages and one of them is bringing people closer together. Echovita reaches a much broader spectrum of people, which provides the family with more support from people who would normally be uninformed of a loved one's passing, such as: old colleagues, neighbors, childhood friends, etc. Echovita strongly believes that families are the rightful owners of their loved ones' obituaries and, therefore, should be able to control them on their own terms. We also believe that families should not be burdened with having to pay funeral homes for every minute detail involved when losing a loved one. Something like an obituary should be free, and with Echovita's platform, it is and more. We put aside 50% of profits made via sales for the family to claim for themselves or they can select a charity for us to donate the money to. You claim that "flowers are never delivered because it's not the same company", which doesn't make any sense at all and there is absolutely no truth in that statement. Echovita is directly partnered with Blooms Today who processes flower orders throughout both Canada and The United States. When orders are receved, Blooms Today processes the order and sends it to the closest local florist (in their program) to the delivery address, who then prepares and delivers the order. If, for any reason, the order cannot/wasn't delivered on time or there was a non-delivery, the customer is notified and a full refund is processed.

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- Peabody, MA, USA

Scammer's phone 508-652-4800
Scammer's website www.echovita.com
Country United States
Victim Location MA 01960, USA
Type of a scam Online Purchase

Went on my email and this site popped up. I wanted to send a condolence to a friend. I bought 10 trees for $30.00 plus postage for $5.00. Never asked for email address where I wanted to send it. How stupid am I.

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When memorial trees are planted on Echovita, they are planted by The National Forest Foundation via Echovita's patnership with Blooms Today. A certificate for the memorial trees that were planted is sent to the email address submitted by the user who paid for the planting of the memorial trees, which they can then forward to the family or print out and give it as a gift. The $5.00 charge is not for postage, as nothing is sent by mail. The $5.00 charge is a service fee for the planting of the trees.

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I was contacted by a family we are serving that pointed out Echovita had picked up a notice from my website. Information was not correct, they had the wrong town of residence, omitted the widower's name and had the wrong cemetery and address of same. The Church is angry, the family is angry and I'm furious. Within hours they changed this notice but still have the residence wrong.
Janice H. Mannal
Robert L. Mannal Funeral Home
(o) 215-624-8989 (c) 215-783-6784

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We were in contact with both you and the family via email and the corrections were made and the concerns have been dealt with. Also, the city we state does not always indiciate the deceased's town of residence. It can indicate, the town of which they passed away, their hometown, or even the city where the funeral home is located that assisted the family. The explanation of the city stated can be viewed by clicking the white question mark next to the city.

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Scammer's website Www.echovita.com
Country United States
Type of a scam Other
Initial means of contact Not applicable

Echovita is a death notice pirating company. BEWARE. They quickly acquire information on a death, and announce it on behalf of the family (in our case, inaccurately with wrong, misleading information, before we had had a chance to even write the obituary). Then they leave place for your friends and family to leave messages, and click on the various advertising links for ordering flowers, etc. Canada successfully brought suit against this company. The U.S. needs to do the same.

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+18

Echovita does not pirate death notices. We further share basic facts of publicly announced deaths to informa society of who has passed away. Can mistakes arise? Yes, we are all human, and funeral homes have made many mistakes on a much greater scale as well. When we are made aware of any incorrect information, we make the correction immediately. We also enable the family to remove the death notice from our website if they wish, or we can post the original death notice with their permission. Furthermore, we put aside 50% of any profits received from sales for the family that they can claim or decide to donate to a charity of their choosing.

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