My mom started messaging me... two weeks AFTER her death: Families left ... trends now
It was two weeks after her mother's death, and Melanie's grief was just starting to subside when a notification popped up on a younger relative's phone.
To the family's horror, it was a Facebook DM from her deceased mom. 'Hello how are you doing today?' the message read.
Reading it set off a cascade of emotions in Melanie - for a split second there was a glimmer of hope that she could still be alive.
Then came the sudden realization something more sinister was at play.
Melanie - who asked to remain anonymous to prevent the family from being targeted again - was the victim of a rising new scam, 'ghost hacking'.
The scammer moved quickly to trying to sell bogus investment opportunities (picture: Daily Mail)
Melanie says that the hacker struck within two weeks of her mother's death
Ghost hacking sees hackers target the accounts of recently deceased people, either for direct theft, or to message family members with scams.
Melanie says that her mother, who had passed away after a short illness, started to message family members from a cloned Facebook account.
Melanie believes hackers may have been looking at obituaries or local news reports of recent deaths to find victims to target.
She told DailyMail.com: 'It was quite distressing not only for me but for my wider family because mom was such a character within the family. '
In Melanie's case, the hacker contacted a young family member at university saying that Melanie's mother had recently found a brilliant investment opportunity.
Melanie said: 'The conversation started with a simple, 'Hello, how are you doing?' and then the hacker moved on to a scam about compensation payments worth $150,000.
Melanie said that the hacker appeared to be using a cloned Facebook account, and it was 'incredibly difficult' to get in contact with Facebook to stop it.
The family had not thought about dealing with her mother's online accounts due to the rapid events of her mother's death.
'I want to stop other people having to go through the same thing we did,' said Mel.
'You need to think about the person's digital presence while they are still alive - and think about your own in case the worst happens.'
