STORYTIME: THE $11,500 CASKET SCAM 

"... Bruce reveals that he wants the five caskets shipped to Denmark. Yes, this is a red flag ..." To be exact, it's a red flag with a white cross on it.

Wait so what I've gleaned from this video is that I can purchase a seagrass coffin from you and when I die... I can go to hell in a handbasket.

FIRST! Oh wait, I'm just here alone.

"I have a feeling this man doesn't really want artisanal eco friendly caskets" xD

There's one person who disliked this video. I see you Bruce Perkins, I see you.

5 caskets? The first thing I would think isn't SCAM but ECO-FRIENDLY SERIAL KILLER!!!!

I'm a bit late to the party, but as a bank employee who used to work in international trade services, you did exactly the right thing in getting in touch with both Paypal and the bank!

Years ago, someone from Nigeria tried to scam me for several computers. I talked him into paying for the shipping label and sent a box full of household garbage.

I work in the fraud industry. You did a lot of our leg work by calling the bank and giving them the heads up. you also probably saved a LOT of other small businesses a ton of heart ache. The bank will likely flag all pertinent info and begin investigating. Thanks, from someone that doesn't have to deal with a sobbing, heart broken small business owner who I can't help because they played into the fraudster's hands and made it difficult for us to help them! Glad you caught on to their wiley ways!

I’m a person who has always been uncomfortable with death. Honestly it just scares me. I have recently stumbled upon these videos and I have become fascinated with facts of death and slightly less terrified of it. I think what she is doing is great and thoughtful. She probably won’t see my comment, which is fine but thanks for making death less scary.

Is it wrong that all I got from this video was "Shit, there's eco-friendly caskets? How can I get one?"

57 Nigerian princes dislike this.

Danish people are typically amazing at English, so there's another red flag. Great episode!

Was anyone else thinking “this guy is going to kill his family” when he said he wanted 5 caskets?

1.) Those sea grass caskets would make an absolutely lovely bassinet or hamper. 2.) As a restaurant owner, I can count five specific times when someone has called or emailed us and tried to order a ridiculous amount of food to be shipped overseas. It was always a ridiculous number, like 200x orders of Thai red curry chicken to be shipped by air to Pakistan or the Philippines. I wonder how many people actually fall for such scams.

I feel like watching a scam email video by James Veitch would be a good lesson on how to scam the scammer. He's even made some of the scammers reply "please stop emailing us"

A Dane who doesn't have decent English is very RARE, haha.

... thank you for the inspiration I needed to start weaving crazy scams into my mystery D&D games. I needed to create cases without murder, and this seems honestly hilarious.

Call down the wrath of Amber upon the scammers!

I think my Aunt was buried in a woven casket, I was shocked at how small she actually was & quite annoyed she had some wild flowers on it as she would have preferred a bottle of whiskey on it.

Two dislikes? One is Bruce and one is the shipping company, I assume. 😂

I get called by "Amber" from social security every single day and she talks over me and makes the same offer she has made a dozen times, then when I wont stop talking she hangs up. I'm trying to get creative about how I handle her.

You absolutely did the right thing. It was a good move to call Paypal and a kind move to call the bank, because you have saved future scams through that account.

You and Amber are HEROES. Standing ovation for telling that bank chain about it and helping them put a stop to scammers!

Just wanted to add this, but I started watching your channel when you first got started because I was having a hard time dealing with the death of a classmate. She and her whole family died suddenly and as a high school student, it was hard for me to wrap my head around. These videos also helped me greatly when a close friend of mine died in a car accident a couple years ago. Your videos brought me comfort in a time that was very dark. Being more informed about death helped me cope with these tragedies. Thank you.

That's great that you were able to not be scammed! My husband and I were scammed out of $1k years ago. We lived in PA and were looking for a home to rent in FL. We found a listing and called. They were asking 1k a month for a small studio which was a good deal but not uncommon. They said that we could send money via credit card, money order, etc. We asked if we could send a friend (who lived in FL) see it. Here's where it gets odd. They said yes. They would put the key under the front mat. Our friend went and looked at it. It seemed great. We paid. They never got back to us. We called the neighbors (thanks to a simple Google search, we were able to find the phone number of the neighbors) and they said it was empty. We called the local police and reported it. They said the people renting it probably got kicked out, made copies of the key and scammed several people out of 1k. We were pretty bummed.

These scammers are very creative! They should channel their creativity for good instead of evil! What a turdburgler!!!

I told my mother about your seagrass caskets and she said they're beautiful and she'd love one when she passes. Where would one find one? She's nowhere near her time but you never know.

lmfao I'm from Denmark and I don't know a single person named Bruce....

I had a "client" pre-order half a dozen individual mummified fairies (one of the sculpted projects that first brought about my awareness that I could sculpt, and started as a joke birthday gift to my sister...who is as morbid and fascinated by the macabre as I am;). It took me 8 months to finish them all - maintaining contact with the "buyer" the entire time. I spoke with this person regularly and, by the time I'd completed the projects, I actually considered this person an 'internet friend'. Anyway, the total cost of these items, including shipping, would have been nearly a thousand dollars. So once completed, I started trying to figure out with the "buyer" how we would ship the items, as they are made from polymer clay, thin metal wire and feathers, all layered upon small, plastic Halloween decoration skeleton armatures. These are delicate, one-of-a-kind pieces of art, and I was thrilled to have an order that expensive (highest order I'd ever filled at that point). Once I received the PayPal information from the scammer, I sat back and waited for her to transfer the money from her PayPal to mine. I actually planned a weekend trip to the Axe Murder House in Vilisca, Iowa, with my hubby and teenaged sons, to celebrate my first really significant sale as a professional sculptor. Turns out the "buyer" would deposit money into your PayPal account, wait to receive the items, and then immediately contest the transaction, citing that they'd never gotten the items. PayPal would refund the money, and the scammer would then have the art, AND the refund, thereby getting your artwork for free, and leaving you with nothing, while they sold the victim's artwork as their own. They jumped the gun with me, though, and contested the items BEFORE they received them, so when the shipment was turned away at customs for containing suspected biological material (the customs agents apparently peaked inside and either the feathers, or the clay formed to resemble dessicated, mummified skin, convinced them to refuse the boxes and send them back to me). I never heard from the buyer again, and all of the contact methods we're suddenly defunct once the refund request to Paypal had been made. I only found out it was a relatively common scam after talking to other artists who'd been through similar experiences while selling online and shipping their work internationally. SO...they didn't get my fairies. It took me about 3 months to sell them all, individually, and now I don't ship anything until the money has been transferred, removed from PayPal by me, and safely deposited into my own bank here in the Midwest. Scammers suck, but I'm glad you didn't suffer any economic losses from the idiot trying to scam you!

I'm from Denmark and I'd maybe like a casket like that, but luckily I'm not named Bruce 😉

I think you did the right thing. By contacting that bank, they can't use them for that anymore, and they'll have to move on. Probably saved the bank a hell of a lot of grief, too.

What a shitty fake name. If his name was more along the lines of Elias Christiansen or something I'd buy it, but Bruce? As a Scandinavian, I've never, _ever_ met a Bruce. To me it sounds like you did the right thing, you never really scammed him per-se, but you did notify the right people about what they were doing and they put an end to it on their end. Sure enough "Bruce" might not be done with their scamming days, but at the very least you threw a wrench in the works for them.

Here's a great funeral director revenge story. My late father was a meter reader for a Canadian city electric utility. The mother of one of the other meter readers was conned and scammed by an unscrupulous funeral home and she ended up signing a contract and spending thousands more than she could afford. So, for the meter readers, it was payback time. Many business had what were called Demand Meters which were set back to zero after each reading. So, each time the meter was read, the meter reader would simply add 15-20% to his reading device. This went on for years. That bastard at the funeral home ended up paying more than five times the total cost of the original funeral. Man, I love it when the good guys win!! p.s. The meter readers and other utility employees took up a collection and the lady was totally reimbursed.

Very wise doing your homework! Truthfully I had a run in with a scammer called Bruce when inworke as an international shipping manager for a freight forwarder (think tavel agent for cargo). My Bruce Savage (I kid not) wanted to ship several 40 freight container filled with used tires to a "revolutionary" new plant in central Sudan where said tire would be turned into cheap energy for the poor. Ok skipping to the end, we checked with the Sudanese consolet....Seems they had several dozen containers of used tires sitting in there country from our scammer. We ended our relationship with Bruce when we informed him we did not have the proper license to ship his tires.....But have him the number of a shipper who could......The FBI who we called on this boy.

that casket is so dreamy! I didnt know such caskets even existed

I was thinking about cremation but now a beautiful sea grass casket doesn't sound like a bad idea.

I watched this video when it first came out, and a couple of weeks later my husband received a request to "buy" one of his artworks if he used their specific shipping company... Yep, your video definitely helped me know it was a scam from the start!

"If it wasn't for those darn kids" I would have gotten away with it!" said Bruce, conman with a credit card. Well done Caitlyn and Amber. Well done!

Wow, I love Amber, what she did was very clever and I highly doubt I would be able to do it. Major props to Amber!

Caitlin's hair is so perfect. HOW

Is it normal that I want a casket bed frame? I know that caskets aren't designed to be comfortable, but it'd be cool.

so strange that they targeted you...how niche of that scammer

I was left a message a month ago and I thought, “gee, these scammers are getting lazy” Message went as; “you are involved with several serious crimes! Call back now at xxx-xxx-xxxx to be removed from the case!!”

Hi Caitlin! Just finished your book and it was awesome

Wow, as a certified fraud examiner I find this fascinating! Thanks for sharing the antidote!

So take that BRUCE, you crook you......Yay for you Undertaking LA! BTW Caitlin i just want to tell you I thought the TEDX talk was really well done, you really rock!

A soap maker I watch on RU-vid had a similar business scammer contact her. Also from Denmark.

First off, i have had the same scam, i make coffins for a living and a person in Russia wanted one of my products. Now i am no stranger to international dealings since 3/4 of my merchandise goes to places like the UK and Australia. But this man tried to send me a check from the Peoples Friends Bank of Moscow. I researched the bank, and low in behold, they don't exist.

Ha! We got those emails at a screenprint shop I used to work for. It was always super obvious because they'd ask for hundreds/thousands of unprinted shirts, and at those quantities, it would make more sense to contact a garment supplier directly.

Wow what a nice cautionary tale. Justice was served :D

Anything anyone can do to make life difficult for scammers is good! You are saving others from being scammed by them... I know people who have been scammed-sadly my mom fell for one of those "microsoft" scams in which they gain remote access to your computer and then can install viruses and keystroke loggers, etc. We had to wipe her computer and reinstall windows. My father in law "kinda" fell for the "IRS scam", in which they contact you saying you owe the IRS money and there is a warrant for your arrest and you need to pay them asap. Well, he couldnt afford to pay what they were asking, so he got dressed nicely and went to the police station to surrender himself-where they told him it was a scam. I have had many people attempt to scam me, but havent actually been scammed as far as I know.

The description of the casket was very soothing. I'd buy one!

Identical thing happened to me and my small business. $7500 lost

Well done Caitlin & Amber, nice detective work.

The funeral home in Wilson, Oklahoma took advantage of me and my brother when we unexpectedly lost my mother... We didn't know what things cost but we wanted to cremate her and then have a funeral with the urn on a table. So to cremate her and simply provide a room for the funeral- those crooks charged us over $10,000! We provided our own table, and decorations, and even set it all up! They provided like 6 boxes of kleenex for the whole building which was ridiculous. The whole thing was just a scam considering we didn't have her embalmed or have a viewing. We even provided our own urn for them to put her in. But we were grieving and barely functional so we didn't know we got taken til it was too late. I hope there's a special place in Hell for scamming funeral homes.

You rocked it! I loved that you were able to inform the small bank. I am a member of a small credit union, we had a Ukrainian incident that wiped out all of our accounts. They were able to get it all back electronically, but the main branch refused to drop cash the first day. I had like $23 for over the weekend with no food in the house and two babies. It sucked.

Whenever you are being scammed you should always try and reverse scam the scammer! I absolutely love hearing about scammers get reverse justice! Thank you for sharing. I spent 15 years do8ng online business and saw a lot of shenanigans 🙃 during that time. They are getting very creative and sneaky. They belong in a straw basket...um, casket!

Of all the people I wouldn't want to anger, funeral workers are at the top of my list. Commercial Fishermen are second.

Ive been suicidal for years and I literly am not killing myself because Then I couldn’t watch your videos. You are the funniest most eccentric person I ever seen. Your videos bring me so much joy why you aren’t an actress god only knows cuz you are amazing.

Unrelated to the video but your hair looks amazing!

Wait , they have Himalayan salt urns? Well.. I’ve picked my final destination

Caitlin your bangs are SO PERFECT in this video OMG

I want to be wrapped in a blanket and dumped in the grave. Then I can quietly decompose in peace…well, not me, but my body.

Hi, I'm not from the US but I was wondering if at some point you would do a video about the law that force people to have funerals for aborted babies in Texas ? I'm not sure if that's entirely relevant but I would definitely love to hear your opinion on this. Anyways, great video as always !

"This is when Bruce reveals that he wants the 5 caskets shipped to Denmark. Yes, this is a red flag-" Actually...it's a red flag with a white cross on it. HEH.

Is nobody here gonna talk about how Snow White didn't get credit for guest-hosting this episode?

So, oddly enough my family had this same scam tried on us. Except we sell hay...

I had two different people try to do this on a small scale via Craig's List. They wanted me to send a $2400 tiller via a bogus shipping company. I would have had to eat the cost, but they assured me they'd pay me back upon confirmation of my credit card's payment. The fact that they were skirting Pay Pal was an immediate red flag. Kind of interesting how in both instances of this, the people texted my phone using broken English, and refused to speak to me directly with their "human" voices.

Man I wish I'd watched this a year ago, before our distillery started getting scammers pretending to want our hand sanitizer....

i answered an ad to let a company "wrap" my car with their advertising. They sent me a check for 3 thousand dollars from some schools bank account down south! I was supposed to cash the check and use the money to have the car wrapped... um yea no! I did like Amber and I called the bank and the school.

Its allways alarming if a danish person doesnt speak or write any good english. There are only tv shows and films with subtitles in denmark, so most of them are fluent in english.

Yes you did the right thing, I used to work at a bank and it's scary to see how many scammers are out there. Some people even fall for the completely obvious scams. I'm glad you guys caught it and notified the bank of the fraud.

A business i knew called skeletons out of the closet lost their shop to a scammer. (They're still hanging on online. Although they haven't really recovered.)

Oh wow, I just looked at your Eco-firendly caskets online and they are so beautiful! Traditional caskets seems to heavy and intimidating, like a vault that traps you, but these feel so light, simple, like they surround you with the Earth's love. A good way to leave this plain.

Hey, boss can I scam the scammers. NOO......... WAIT! Yea go ahead... "your a cool boss" 👍👍👍

Yes I was scammed. I was scammed by a realtor. $10,000. I'm still livid.

GOOD FOR YOU!!!! I love it that you exposed this scammer, and in doing so, you educated your viewers on what to watch out for. THANK YOU!!

Was worried where this was gonna end up, glad it was a success story!

That’s very similar to the sugar daddy scam: I had a sugar daddy and I tried reaching out to me and it led up to like I’m gonna go ahead and give you your first allowance: i’m like OK here’s my PayPal link send it to me & then he’s like no I don’t trust digital transfers let me just go ahead and give you my credit card information and I’m like no you can send it to me on PayPal or cash app: then he tried arguing with me over and I’m like I don’t have to take your money: and I left it as you can either send it to me through PayPal or cash app because I don’t know if you stole that credit card.

I think Bruce is the one who is the only dislike of this video. lol

Think Worldwild shipping lol

You were very clever! Wise girls 😉

I know I'm commenting kinda... well... late, but you totally did the right thing. I work for a bank and they really appreciate getting a heads up for these kind's of things going on. They can actually stop them with that kind of info.

Omgg love your haircut❤️ and I just wanted to let you know I recently had my parents watch your TEDtalks segment, and it started the discussion of what they wanted as far as funeral arrangements, their wills, and even the idea of death positivity! I also loved your book and may or may not have passed it on to my mom for a good read :,). You truly have changed the way I view the process of dealing with death and the funeral industry as a whole. So thank you😊

I love how up-front u are. You like Wensday Addams grown up. Btw great videos.

Can I just say that I love you, Caitlin! Thank you for sharing this with us. As usual, spreading the knowledge!!!!

"Bruce that traditionally Danish name." 🇩🇰 🤣

I work as the shipping manager for a small company myself, and yeah these things are all over the place. Good catch! I always look for things like unusually American-sounding names (often with the same name appearing in the email address but with a different spelling), or improbably personal company names (like Robert Jones Supply Co. or something). I wish I had the chance to mess with them back, but around here those emails just get deleted outright.

Sounds like Amber got temporarily possessed by AtomicShrimp or Jim Browning and started Scambaiting the scammer lmao

Oh, Bruce. You tricksy trickster. Now I want to know what bank that was because I live in Alabama.

Yes, you guys ABSOLUTELY did the right thing. We must unite and fight back against these guys as a collective. Although online scamming will literally never stop, If we can put the fear of getting scammed back into these people, It is just about the best possible deterrant. Plus, it's just such poetic justice. Love to hear the inner mental gymnastics of one of these guys when they did scanned back and get angry, because I don't think they would have the maturity to admit that they obviously deserved this, the concept is just so perfect. "NO! Only I get to scam, you don't get to scam me!! No fair!!😭_

I had a man try to scam me the other day. He left a message on my FIL's phone for ME, and used my maiden name. Both of which are extremely strange because my FIL's number has never been mine in any way and my name has been changed to my married name for more than ten years. He says he is trying to "serve" me, but leaves no case number, docket number, or even company name. He says that if I don't call and PAY him, he will be coming to my home the next day. I googled the number and he is in TX, but I am in TN. I couldn't google a company because he never said one. I knew it was fake when my FIL made me listen to the message, but I want to get to the bottom of it and figure out what scam he is pulling so that I can report it. I can imagine that with him calling and saying that he will be coming to your home the next day if you don't pay him, some older women could pay him out of fear. The entire message had a very dark creepy vibe. I am glad that you didn't get scammed! It's really awful these days how often people are scammed!

I got scammed once. Craigslist rental scam. I was so embarrassed. The guy puts pictures of this house and says it's for rent. We actually ended up notifying the real homeowner that this guy was "renting" his house out for deposit money. He was not happy because we actually went and looked at the house. He was worried other people had been going and snooping around his property because of the listing. He wasn't renting the place out. He actually bought it in order to fix up and flip it, but he still have personal items on the property he didn't want tampered with.

I admire your investigative skills, well done!!

1 - I LOVE that seagrass casket. If I weren't going the organ donation / donate to medical science route, I would absolutely LOVE that thing! 2 - I've been scammed ... well attempted scam on my ex-husband. We were checking the online bank statement and here's a charge, with a phone number, for magazines. He called the number and asked them to speak directly to me, as he is hard of hearing. So I ask what exactly he ordered. Apparently, he called them and ordered about a dozen different golf magazines. He does NOT play golf. He's outdoorsy, but we're talking hunting and fishing, not golf. So I asked them to cancel the order and refund the money (it was only $50 but we were kinda broke at the time, so it was a big amount to us back then.). "Ok, I cancelled the order and it will take 30 days for your refund." I said nope, you took it out in about 30 seconds, you can refund in same. "Oh, no, you have to wait." I want to talk to your supervisor. "Look, ma'am, just wait the 30 days." I want your supervisor. "It's still going to take..." SUPERVISOR. "Ma'am..." SUPERVISOR. SUPERVISOR. SUPERVISOR. Every time he opened his mouth, I said SUPERVISOR. Not yelling, just emphatic. He hung up. So I called the bank and told them what happened. Put on hold. THEY tried to talk to this scammy company. Came back and the CSR told me, "I had no luck either, so here's what we'll do. We'll cancel his card and issue him a new one. It will be to you in about 5 days or you can come to the branch and pick it up immediately. We'll just make it here anyway. And we're immediately reversing that charge. Thank you, have a nice day!" Oh yeah. The reversal took a grand total of about 30 seconds. Scammers are just stupid.

Ok, so this story isn't quite about a SCAM, but my cousin hates telemarketers and likes to play tricks on them. Once she talked to a telemarketer for 45 minutes, just about everything...AND HE DIDN'T HANG UP! But my favorite story is when she sang "Prima Donna" from Phantom of the Opera over the phone to the telemarketer. She has a beautiful soprano voice, and he actually thanked her 😊

Classic Bruce.

I've had my own personal experience(s) with scammers. One of my favorite ones (cause it ends in victory) was with car warranty scammers, and lasted for about two years. It started with a single call, right after I paid all my bills, including my car insurance, and heard some jerk on the other line start off with "Hi, is this Y? Owner of your 2013 car?" Three things that should've tipped me right off the bat; 1. For example purposes, Y is my nickname, why would anyone who would have any reason to give me official phone calls use my nickname? And 2. my car is a 2009 model (though I didn't really know that at the time, but still), and finally 3. the car is still technically under my mom's name since it used to be hers. All I did was confirm my name and this jerk goes on this loooooooong spiel about how my "car warranty" has "expired" and that I need to pay for a longer warranty so that I wouldn't have to pay full price for any damage that should tragically happen to my car, told me that the price was over $120, and immediately asked if I was paying with a master card or visa. Once again, I had JUST paid my car insurance, and my mom is actually my insurance agent (no im not saying she pays my insurance bills for me, she is literally an insurance agent so she deals with all of that crap and teaches me the importance of insurance and how it works) so I was panicking, and extremely confused, and told this guy, bold face, "What?! B-but I just paid my car insurance bill! No one told me anything about a warranty? C-can I call my mom real quick and get back to you? She's actually my insurance agent on such matters." He responds, nearly instantaneously, "Ma'am, I understand that you're shocked at such news, but time is of the essence and you need to pay this now. Are you paying with mastercard or visa?" I kept telling him my spiel over and over again, trying to negotiate a lower price, but he kept saying the same thing over and over again. Finally I had had enough. I told him that I would look for my card, and would put him on hold. Covering the speaker, I IMMEDIATELY rushed to my brother and demanded that he give me his cell phone so that I could call mom. Once I called her and told her what happened, of course that's when I learned that they were scamming me. Which is why they were being so damned insistent that I pay over the phone. So without warning I immediately hang up on them, and tell her more in detail what had happened. But my story doesn't end there, OHHHH NOOOOO.... these jerkwads kept calling me, and calling me. And I made sure to let them know that I was fully aware of their little scam too, and since I got a new phone, it has let me know that these people aren't even from my god damned state! My victory, however, came one early morning, I was dead tired, and thought someone from work was calling me, and heard the ear gratting voice say, "Hi Y! The warranty on your car is about to expire, and you need to update it. We have been trying to contact you for the past two weeks-" "Two years actually..." Keep in mind, I was tried, and very grouchy that I was woken up by these scammers again. "I'm sorry what was that?" "You people have been trying to sell me this shtick for the past two YEARS, not weeks!" There's a loooooong pause before I hear the person on the other line, quickly tell me, in a panic, "We're taking you off our call list."

HA! I had the exact same thing happen to me years ago when I owned a natural cosmetics company. I did the same thing; google mapped the address in Denmark, it too was some random building under construction and the person emailing me wanted me to use their shipping company (some freighter company...), when he kept insisting I use his company which I couldn't find much info on, I knew it was a scam