HALIFAX — Funeral directors across the country are warning grieving families about a trend of third-party websites republishing obituaries for profit.
Jim Bishop, the funeral director for Bishop’s Funeral Home in Fredericton, said he’s noticed an increase in grieving people who use his services complaining of altered death notices — sometimes with erroneous details — appearing on one such website called Echovita.
He said that since mid-July, about a dozen people have advised him their loved one’s obituary had been taken. The website of the Better Business Bureau, which has not awarded Echovita accreditation, shows five complaints against the company. One complaint from 2022 called Echovita a"trolling company" for posting an unapproved and altered version of an obituary, causing great distress to the grieving family.
“My grandfather recently passed away, and when I Googled his obituary, the first hit was from some random site I’d never heard of, Echovita. The obituary was not what my family had published,” the review reads. The review continues to say that on top of “being terribly written,” the republished obituary named living family members mentioned in the original notice as deceased.
The Canadian Press also asked how Echovita verifies that flowers purchased on the website — which range in price from $90 to $334 — make their way to grieving families or the funeral homes where services are held, but Echovita did not provide any details. Quebec's registry of businesses lists a Quebec City address for Echovita and says Paco Leclerc is the president.
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