Online scammers have targeted Jay Slater’s funeral, offering access to a fake live stream of the event in exchange for money, likes and follows.
There is no live stream of Saturday’s funeral of the 19-year-old from Oswaldtwistle, in Lancashire, who is believed to have fallen to his death after getting lost in a mountainous area of Tenerife on 17 June.
But a charity working with his family has said that so many accounts are appearing trolling the event that getting them removed is “endless work”.
Matthew Searle, chief executive of LBT Global, a charity supporting the families of British nationals who go missing abroad, said some scam accounts were asking for “donations” in exchange for a link to a live feed.
“We are inundated with reports of these scams, and as fast as we can get the platforms to remove them, more appear,” he added. “To be completely clear: there is no live stream of Jay’s funeral and anyone claiming to offer one is a scam.”
Slater’s disappearance prompted a major search operation and intense publicity until the Spanish Guardia Civil found his body in a ravine on 15 July.
Searle, who supported Slater’s family in communicating with the Spanish authorities, urged anyone spotting any scam pages to report it to the relevant social media platform. He added: “It is so typical of the vile trolling this family have received for them to target something so special as a funeral.”
The only authentic donation page linked to Slater is the one on the LBT Global website, he said.
Slater had been with friends, on his first holiday without his parents, when he attended a rave at the Papagayo nightclub in the southern resort of Playa de las Americas on 16 June.
He went to the north-western mountain village of Masca with two people he had met earlier in his holiday. The next morning, he began to walk 11 hours back to his accommodation. After about half an hour he called a friend, Lucy Law, to say he was lost, thirsty and had 1% battery on his phone. He was never heard from again.
A postmortem found he died of traumatic head injuries, consistent with a fall from height.
Slater’s “celebration of life service” is to take place at Accrington Cemetery Chapel on Saturday at 10.30am before burial.
Flowers will come from the family but “if anyone would like to bring a single rose to place with Jay, they are more than welcome”, his relatives said in a statement issued through LBT Global.
