The brother of a woman who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend has said her family was horrified that a fake memorial page was set up in her name.
Jennifer Poole (24) was stabbed to death with a kitchen knife in a frenzied attack at her home in April 2021.
Her ex-boyfriend Gavin Murphy, of Coultry Drive in Ballymun, later admitted stabbing her seven times and was handed a life sentence for her murder.
Jennifer's brother Jason told Lunchtime Live the family were alerted to something suspicious on her anniversary last Wednesday.
"We just became aware that scammers had set up a memorial page to view her funeral service online," he said.
"When you clicked on the link then they were requesting money for you to be able to watch the funeral service.
"It was the day that was in it; if it happened this week or next week you would have looked at it a little differently.
"It was the day of her anniversary and it's a raw, horrible day".
A split-screen of Jennifer Poole and flowers left for her after her murder.Mr Poole said some people believed the family had set up the fraudulent page.
"Some people had accepted the page, some people had went on to the link already," he said.
"They thought we had set up the page as a memorial page but that wasn't case.
"It was quite horrific really; it's another fraud or scam situation."
Mr Poole said the page had used photos of Jennifer and sent out friend requests.
"They had taken picture and it was well done - it was a friend page so you could add it and it was sending out friend requests," he said.
"So they had went through our own private Facebook pages and found family members and friends and then generated friend requests to all of the immediate families friends on Facebook".
'They're watching Facebook pages'
Mr Poole said scammers are taking note of deaths and anniversaries in the locality.
"There was actually another funeral in the community quite recently and there was a similar page set up," he said.
"There was one last month again from another person in the community.
"So obviously they're watching the Facebook pages and they're looking at people's grief and they're banking on that as a way of making money".
Mr Poole said a similar page was set up "as recent as two days ago" with another family.
He said it is likely the scammers believed his sister had died recently.
"I would image because there was so many people on social media that day putting up their tributes to Jennifer that these hackers assumed that she had just died," he said.
"In the other two cases that I've had people contact me about... there was a funeral taking place."
'We need legislation'
Mr Poole said he would like to see 'proper procedures' to stop such pages being set up.
"Action needs to be taken I suppose in relation to legislation within Ireland," he said.
"We're able to track down things, we're able to view things... so there has to be some way of linking in with these organisations and actually putting proper procedures in place.
"We need legislation to protect who are getting scammed, particularly at their most troubled times," he added.
He said the page has been reported but is still active on Facebook.
In January a funeral home warned that scammers were purporting to offer live stream links to 'high interest' funerals around the country.
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