GoFundMe and loan sharks: How Britain's poorest are burying their loved ones in 2024
By Emily Mee, Money team
Scroll through GoFundMe and it won't be long before you see them.
There's a widow left with her husband's financial struggles. Three young siblings trying to raise funds for their mum's send-off after her sudden death. A 25-year-old domestic violence victim whose family want to give her the send-off she deserves.
There are scores of pages like this as an apparently increasing number of Britons struggle with funeral costs.
These costs have risen 126% in the last two decades, according to a recent report from SunLife.
Where families would once have paid £1,835 for a basic funeral, they are now looking at costs of £4,141 on average.
"People can't afford to bury their dead," says Pastor Mick Fleming, who runs the charity Church On The Street.
He frequently spends his time helping families pay for funerals and providing his services as a minister for free, although he says there is simply too much demand for his small charity to help everyone.
Government or local authority grants are available to help families with funeral costs, but Pastor Mick says these can come too late as undertakers will often require a partial payment upfront.
There's an even darker side to this, too.
"What we're now seeing is people who are poor can't walk into the bank and get a bank loan - the economy's tough at the minute," Pastor Mick says.
"They can't get legitimate access to money so they can't borrow it and pay a decent standard rate back, so they have to go to loan sharks."
Many then find it impossible to pay the loan back and face threats from the criminals who lent them the money, says Pastor Mick.
He recalls: "There was a middle-aged lady, she had to borrow the money to bury her son.
"She couldn't pay the money back so then she started to get threatened and intimidated. People turning up at the house.
"It was pretty horrendous. She was getting suicidal. She was heartbroken already and she just couldn't get the money together."
The pastor says he was able to negotiate on her behalf - something he is now having to do as part of his charity work - but "you can't do that for everybody".
A funeral without a service
The number of funeral-related fundraisers increased by 22% on GoFundMe last year, figures shared with Sky News reveal.
Individual donations to these fundraisers increased by almost 400,000.
Many of these are trying to avoid their loved one being given a public health funeral, which is what happens if families are unwilling or unable to pay.
Local authorities are legally obliged to carry out funerals in this case, but they are given little guidance from the government on what this should entail - meaning each council will have its own policy on what is or isn't included.
In some cases, a service will not be offered and a person will be cremated or buried without the presence of family members.
Other times, the family may be allowed to attend but they might not be able to get involved in the service.
Generally, people will be cremated, unless they have asked not to be for religious or cultural reasons.
Those who are buried will often have a grave with no marker, or they may be placed in a communal grave.
"For someone that's lost a child or a husband or a wife or any loved one where you just haven't been able to provide closure, there's a sense of guilt that goes with it," Pastor Mick says.
As long as funeral costs remain eye-wateringly high, families across the country will be dealing with that guilt.