Obitus Reviews 498

Unreliable service. On 2 separate occasions when I have attempted to login to view funerals of friends, the obtius site has failed to load the streams. Both times the login details were correct and given to me by bereaved family. I tried using different devices and clearing cookies cache but to no avail. Very disappointing at an already stressful time. I would not recommend this company.

Wanted a relatively simple service with no video broadcasting / webcasting etc.

- one picture to show throughout the service
- one 30 sec video to play
- then 1 song to play through a 25 photo tribute
- finishing with another video of 5 secs (charged another £35 for this...)

Requested a change of the photo to be shown throughout, followed up with emails and phone calls to make sure this was ok.

They won't offer a preview of any kind to make sure that everything is as it should be so you're paying for a service, and operating on pure faith that they will get it right.

Uploaded everything 6 days before the funeral, and then 24 hours before the funeral, I receive a message from our celebrant (who was doing her absolute best to help us out with everything) saying that there's an issue with the main picture (Obitus didn't even message me direct despite the emails and phone calls...)

Apparently the resolution of the holding picture was not great and I needed to either provide a new one, on run with the existing one...

Now I'm no a photo expert, but I can change the size and resolution of images (doesn't feel me with faith that their media team can't do this themselves!), so I did, and sent through.

Followed up with more emails and phone calls.
One phone call of which dropped out - the Obitus team member didn't even call me back which meant I spent another 15 minutes on hold getting through to speak to someone new and re-explain everything...

...not the kind of issue you need 24 hours before the funeral...

Still no option to preview.

The funeral came, and I get called in just before the start - the holding image is not the correct one!

I would have been better off creating the whole thing myself, I would recommend to anyone, if you want a relatively simple tribute, to do just that, or find someone that can and get down to the Crem before hand and test it out.

Alternatively, send everything to me, and for £50 I'll do the lot and you can preview it, and you can keep it forever, unlike Obitus who will charge you MORE money, for a copy of the slideshow, even though you've already paid them to create it, and you never get to preview to make sure it's ok.

Obitus team - don't even bother with a reply - you can investigate issues all you like after the fact, but that doesn't change the fact it was incorrect on the day, despite all the communication - something that you only have ONE CHANCE to get right.

Offer your "customers" or "marks" a preview before hand.

The only thing that was ok was the first video, the music and photos and the final video.

However, for something so important as a funeral service and tribute, it doesn't matter if the rest was alright, if the main holding image was wrong!

Avoid them if at all possible.

Graham Barber at Gordon Barber Funeral Directors, all his team and Mags did a perfect job of arranging and carrying out the funeral. Shame it was spoiled by the money-grabbing incompetent Obitus lot. Everything they do is limited and they want extra money out of all proportion to what is provided. The day before the funeral they told us that to have more than one song played at the beginning would be £25 for each extra one! I had 15 minutes to choose a single song instead of a selection of highlights! Then, after this, nobody online could see what was on the screen, neither the slideshow nor video. Obitus should be terminated and people who are actually competent and not just trying to screw more money out of grieving families should carry out this work. I have no doubt Obitus will respond to this with apologies and try to talk their way out of it but honestly, if you can avoid using Obitus then do yourself a favour and keep as far away from them as you can.

This company needs a total revamp.
You can only use this company for a service, how can this be a monopoly.
This company is old fashioned, you cannot pick a genre of music, you have to pick a artist, if I want heavenly choirs, forget it. Also the sound system was muddy and not clear
certainly not concert grade as they say.
Talking about a service for my mother
on 23/10/ 2023 at the southwest middlesex Crematorium, Jamison suite.

It is so overwhelming having to organise a funeral whilst you are grieving the loss of someone you love. There is so much to think of and do and of course you want your loved ones service to be nothing other than perfect. My Mum meant the absolute world to me and my family and because I forgot to tell our Celebrant a small detail, to play the entry music in full of a song my Mum loved. I truly beat myself up about this in the days after my Mum's funeral. Until I discovered on the Obitus website that you can request a DVD Keepsake of any funeral service even if you hadn't prior arranged this, as long as it is within 28 days of the service. Given that I felt I had made a huge mistake and was beating myself up so much. Something that I know my Mum would not have wanted, I wanted to watch my Mum's service again. Obitus was so understanding and arranged this for me incredibly quickly and upon rushing home to play the DVD after picking it up at the Crematorium I was blown away. This little detail that I had punished myself for meant nothing anymore. My Mum's funeral service was so beautiful I watched it over and over again. We received so many comments of the same and as my Mum was such a beautiful person, her send off couldn't have been any better. So for anyone that felt the way I did, I recommend re-watching the funeral service and you will see that any minor detail that you may have forgotten pales into insignificance. Had I not been able to obtain this DVD, I know I would have probably punished myself for the rest of my life so unnecessarily because I am such a self critical person. Obitus has stopped me from doing that and have given me the correct memory of my Mum's funeral service that will remain with me forever. I cannot believe Obitus can do this for you even though you do not request it before the service. Make sure you request it though within 28 days of your loved ones service. Obitus, I will NEVER be able to thank you enough for restoring my memory to what it should have been. Something I will treasure for the rest of my life.

I attempted to watch my mother’s funeral in Scotland with my children and partner in Australia. We could not travel from Australia to Scotland for the funeral and relied on the live stream. Our internet is fast and we have never had streaming problems before. We loaded the stream and could only hear the service while the image buffered and did not load. We are very disappointed that the crematorium used this live stream provider.

The response from Obitus below is not accepted. We have watched live-streamed funerals before while we were overseas and have had no issues. To miss the images of my mothers funeral is devastating and caused by an incompetent company. My father put my mother’s artwork on her coffin so my children could see it. This company took that experience from us and suggests that watching a recording of the funeral makes up for that. This company should not be in business.

The company has blamed us. Our internet is fast and we have never had streaming issues before. Our tech expert has said that the issue is this provider did not push the data fast enough to cover the distance to Australia. Had the crematorium used a platform like Zoom then we would have had no issues.

I will update this after the funeral director has got back to me. We were sold on the idea of using Obitus because we have family on the other side of the world and wanted to be able to share the funeral with them. We were told the funeral would be live and then available for up to 28 days after. We know the live viewing was OK cos my niece watched it from Turkey. However when I went to check it later in the day for my Aussie family I discovered we have to wait about three working days for it to be edited and uploaded. The funeral director did not mention this at all. We also purchased a slide show in which I was very careful to upload and label the photos in the order we wanted them. It was designed to show my mums life in order of age. The photos on the day were completely randomised. Not happy. I have complained to the funeral director and asked them to get in touch with Obtitus as I feel that my dad definitely has not got value for money.
UPDATE
Funeral director firstly pointed out that we may not have read all the terms and conditions properly but has accepted that when booking a funeral most people just go by what they are told. We have now been offered a refund for the webcast but been told we must approach Obitus direct about the slide show. Obitus are saying that we did not make it clear what order the slides should be shown in even though I uploaded them in correct order and also labelled them 1.jpg, 2.jpg and so on. But finally after several phone calls and asking to speak to a manger I got a refund. My advice. The webcast and slide show tribute are well worth doing but make sure you check before the funeral that everything is how you expect, by asking to see a preview of the slide show.

Amazing service from beginning to end for my dads funeral. The visual tribute, webcast and video were so so special and a must have to remember the service of your loved one. A special thank you to Mark and Leigh for turning things around quickly and providing a faultess display.

I have in the past watched friends funerals via Obitus and it has worked well. So when my young sister age 43 died in November 2022 I arranged for the live broadcast with the funeral parlour, who were wonderful in dealing with me during this awful time. This was necessary because my sister had elderly friends who were either ill or frail and could not attend the in person funeral at Putney Vale Crematorium and they very much wanted to support the family during this very difficult time. Also we had relatives abroad that also wanted to support the family via the live broadcast. On the day of the funeral on 29thDecember 2022 at Putney Vale Crematorium at 11am the live broadcast failed. The distress this caused me was immensed. After investigations Obitus claimed that the funeral parlour booked the wrong chapel. With further investigations the funeral parlour booked the right chapel because everything else worked including the music. I feel Obitus should of showed compassion and refunded me for the distress caused but refused putting the blame on the funeral parlour. At a time when families are grieving surely this company could show good will and compassion and do the right thing? Family and friends were able to watch a recording 2 days later. I had already paid for a recording that would last 28 days anyway. So Obitus providing the video of the recording 2 days later was a empty gesture because hurt and distressed had already happened because of the failure of the live broadcast. The circumstances of my sister dying was tragic and Obitus I am afraid added further distress to my already broken heart by their stubborn refusal to not refund me when the broadcast failed. This saddens me that I had to write this review.

Thank you very much for responding to our first complaint. We didn't know any of that information so apologies for putting a negative review. We've managed to view the funeral online and it's very clear. I can now let Mason's family pay their respects if they were unable to attend. Thank you very much again.

I coudln’t go to my Grandads funeral due to having Covid so as expected i was so upset but then i got given a link from Obitus to be able to watch it live. There was one glitch at one point but other than it was perfect and i am so grateful i got to see it. Perfect picture and sound quality too. Thankyou so much.

Could not get to a friends recent service so was looking forward to seeing the service via obitus, what a disappointment they where. Not only did the transmission fail half way through the service because of the camera setting all we could see was 5 peoples heads , the coffin and a planter? So we could not see the people who gave the eulogies. Looking at previous reviews this company does not like to accept responsibility. Hugely disappointing if you want to have a cherished memory. I could not recommend their service. Sadly

We had a problem uploading pictures and video clips in the specific order that we wanted them in i.e couple of photos, then a clip, few more pics, another clip.
Our wonderful funeral directors West & Coe worked with Obitus and delivered a fabulous and memorable tribute, that left everyone uplifted. Thanks for all your hard work, worth every penny and a service no one will forget.
Thank you

UPDATED REVIEW

Fortunately despite not being able to watch the stream live it appears that the service was recorded and we got to watch it 2 days later.
Not ideal but better than nothing.

ORIGINAL REVIEW
Terrible experience.
“Technical Issues” was showing on screen until about 5 minutes from the end of the service and then a lot of buffering.

This normally indicates a lack of bandwidth or underpowered/overutilised servers.

Hopefully the service was recorded and will appear shortly, otherwise, thanks for screwing up my Uncles funeral.

I had issues attaching a photo to a service today. Called through to the team and spoke to Aleesha, who was absolutely amazing. She dealt with my query quickly and allowed me to email the photo to them, then waited for the email I'd sent. Within 2 mins of the call, I had confirmation that the photo was being processed.
Aleesha was a pleasure to speak to and very efficient

My Mum's service was last week. Her recording was not uploaded and I had to chase up via Crem to find out where it was. They 'assured' me it was recorded but still nothing was uploaded. They then told me they had technical issues with the recording. Then Obitus, told the funeral director the camera was faulty, and the filming was grainy and along the left hand side not viewable. This being 6 days after the service. OBITUS KNEW ABOUT THE FAULT THE DAY OF THE SERVICE because they replaced the camera the next morning, but said nothing to us. They take no responsibility and pass off as 'outside our control' Disgraceful and unprofessional behaviour in such a sensitive time. Literally no compassion or accountability.
Clearly they don't do any technical checks before a recording, and there was no real apology or offer to compensate. Just a lame, cowardly request that the funeral director review the footage and discuss and decide what to do.

Thanks to the amazing way Obitus put together the beautiful picture gallery of my Mum, found me exactly the right sound track I wanted for her music and made everything so easy for our Minister to deliver on the day, we were able to put together the most memorable funeral you could ever imagine. Do not arrange anything for your special loved ones without this company - you will have all the best of memories instead of the sadness.

As a family we had spent much time choosing photos to play at my Grandfathers funeral for a slideshow we wanted at the service. However on the day the wrong deceased persons photos were played!!!!! It was a huge disappoint and has truly spoilt our memory of the day! I understand this was just a genuine mistake but after a family member has spoken with the funeral directors we used (Lodge Brothers in Walton) they said that Obitus don't allow funeral directors to check the files before they are played and that Obitus are the ones who sort them all so basically no one could pick up this huge error meaning this could happen again?! I cant believe that this system has not been changed to avoid heartache for another family or if the funeral directors are the ones at fault then I would very much like to know!

Obitus is slow and uncaring and has extremely poor even deficient client relations.

I get to watch 5 seconds of my grandmother's funeral before it buffers for another 30 seconds. This is really upsetting. She lived in Scotland and I live in Australia, wasn't able to attend in person due to Covid. I was hoping to hear my mother's eulogy but didn't get to today. Very upset.

Note: this isn't on my end - other streaming services work, tried multiple devices, etc