A British mum found herself thoroughly confused after she started receiving calls from close friends who wanted to check if she was, in fact, alive.
This bizarre situation unfolded when an obituary for Faye Finaro was mistakenly published online, leaving her friends stunned to read that she had supposedly passed away.
Faye, 39, who lives in Mansfield, was completely taken aback when she discovered her own obituary online, especially since she had no idea it had been posted in the first place.
Her name, along with a photo of her, appeared in the obituary section of the website for the Mansfield Chad newspaper, where readers were even given an option to send flowers to her family.
Faye first heard about the mix-up when a friend called to “check she wasn’t dead” after spotting her “obituary” in the Legacy section of the newspaper’s website.
To calm any concerns, she assured her friends that she was very much alive and followed up with a post on Facebook to ease the worries of others who might have been misled by the post.
The Nottinghamshire mum, who runs her own beauty business, suspects that a post from 2022 celebrating the launch of her business got mistakenly crossed over into the Legacy section of the site.
Despite the initial shock and concern, Faye was able to see the humor in the situation. She said: “I might have 30 days of flowers coming!”
She continued: “It was a standard day in my life when I got a call from a friend asking me if I was alive.”
“My friend was quite concerned.”
“I posted it on Facebook and quite a few people commented and thought it was hilarious – my son found it really funny.”
Faye explained her thoughts on what may have caused the error, saying: “I believe what’s happened is there must have been some crossover with the celebrations page they were doing and all the photos and captions were left in the database before they were outsourced to Legacy.”
She then added humorously: “God knows how long it was there. Anyway, it was great when they told me they’d removed it – I’m not dead anymore!”
Interestingly, one of Faye’s friends stumbled across the obituary last Tuesday (24 September) when she was casually searching online, hoping to find news coverage on Faye’s recent award for her business.
A screenshot of the obituary page shows a picture of Faye alongside the headline “Faye Finaro Obituary” and an option to “send flowers.”
Faye was later informed that it could take up to 30 days for the obituary to be fully removed from search results.
A spokesperson for Legacy commented: “We are indeed aware of the issue and we are in correspondence with Ms Finaro about the matter.”
At least Faye was able to laugh it off in the end.
