The latest scam involves the fairly popular practice of pre-paid funeral plans where you buy your arrangements (embalming/cremation services burial plots caskets etc.) ahead of time at today’s prices. It’s a great idea in principle since people don’t want to have to think about such matters at such a stressful time.
And that’s what these scam artist death merchants count on. Take the case of Forest Hill South a mortuary and cemetery located in Memphis. Audrey and Carl Brewer purchased a pre-pay plan for the family forking over almost $1300 over time for funeral services. And you know what happened?
The Brewers had no reason to question the honesty of Forest Hill. Its three locations had been in business since 1888 serving the rich and the poor alike including such luminaries as Elvis Presley and his mother. Gladys. Like the Brewers thousands of customers from Tennessee. Mississippi and Arkansas had also trusted the company’s reputation enough to buy pre-need policies. Then in July 2006 one of Forest Hill’s new owners. Oklahoma oilman Clayton Smart called a press conference to announce he was invalidating 13,500 pre-paid funeral contracts including the Brewers’. While police stood by to prevent a customer riot. Smart explained that any contract holder who wanted to use his or her pre-need policy would have to pay an additional $4,000 more or less at the time of death even if the plan was already paid in full. “Obviously things were a lot cheaper in 1965,” Smart explained. “I wouldn’t have bought the business if I thought I’d have to honor those contracts.”
Officials with the Tennessee attorney general’s office offer a different explanation for why Smart wasn’t honoring the contracts. They allege Smart and his partner attorney Stephen Smith drained the company’s pre-need trust funds of $20 million shortly after they purchased Forest Hill in 2004. Those funds which were part of the purchase and were earmarked to pay for the pre-paid funerals and cemetery care. “were supposed to be in very conservative investment vehicles,” says Martha Davis a senior counsel in the state’s bankruptcy division. Instead she says. Smart and Smith diverted the money to risky hedge funds and unsecured loans owned by Quest Minerals and Exploration an oil-and-gas company controlled by Smart’s family. The attorney general’s office says the Quest loans ended up being worthless.
As Barry’s report continues it’s pretty clear that this was not an isolated incident. People (and their relatives) who purchase these policies are getting ripped off as outrageous excuses and bait-and-switch tactics by these death merchants rip them off at the worst possible time in the life of a family.
More including a question of the day is below the fold. According to the AARP. 23% of people 50 and older have signed pre-payment contracts for funerals and/or burials. Even those in the industry acknowledge the scandal is a significant problem.
“This is not every once in a while and it is not just a few bad apples,” says Joshua Slocum executive director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance. “People want to believe that if they sign a check now for a pre-paid funeral they can close their eyes and say. ‘La la la everything’s going to be fine.’ It’s a dangerous delusion.” A delusion because too often funeral companies change hands close their doors or simply raid the trust funds where their customers’ payments are supposed to be securely collecting interest. As a result when the services are needed there’s no money left. Even worse because of inconsistent state regulation and enforcement there’s often no recourse for distressed families who thought everything was taken care of.
One of the most common complaints about pre-need involves the casket bait and switch: the customer asks for a specific casket but when the time comes it’s not available and the funeral home offers a lesser-quality model. In 1999 Katie Smith a retired practical nurse pre-paid a Chicago funeral home for her service. She chose a lavender casket. When she died in 2006 the mortuary insisted that a lavender casket had to be special-ordered and would take ten days to arrive. “I didn’t want to hold up the arrangements that long,” says Katie’s goddaughter. Alicia Hill who reluctantly accepted an “iridescent pink” casket. Alicia believes her godmother would have been disappointed.
If you’re looking to the feds for help don’t hold your breath. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla. a state with a high senior population) so that’s not surprising) tried twice to introduce bills to protect consumers that enter pre-pay arrangements but Congress never even took up the legislation.
This is a lengthy and important read; I encourage you to. People who enter into these contracts get little if any help from the state when a deal goes bad. Many don’t mandate refunds to customers or allow them to transfer their policies to another funeral home if they relocate to another part of the country. Your money goes up in smoke.
My mom wanted immediate cremation no urn no plot no service. She didn’t believe in handing over cash to the death merchants. When she passed away in 1997. I followed her written wishes (though we had discussed it many times and was clear on what she wanted). A few days later the Cremation Society of the Carolinas sent me a plastic box containing a plastic bag with her ashes. I think the whole cost was around $500. My brother and I then flew up to NYC where I the borough she was born and grew up in.
My grandmother recently passed away and she pre-paid for her funeral. My parents thought this was the case but when they asked the funeral home about it they claimed that they hadn’t received any money. Luckily my mother never threw anything away so my parents were able to prove that she had indeed paid. However when my grandmother prepaid they told her that she wouldn’t have to keep the paperwork they would keep it on their computers and in their files. Good thing she didn’t listen to them.
My masters thesis that I am working on right now is on green burials which are growing in popularity. They are much more ecologically friendly and depending on the state funeral home services are not needed at all. There is a growing movement often referred to as death midwifery where groups provide the services and the advice on how to care for your own dead including holding services at your own home and keeping the body cool til burial or cremation. And green burial grounds often allow people to dig the grave themselves and cover it up. Often a coffin is not required at all. Anyone interested should look into this further and hopefully it will catch on more.
The service is up to the survivors. I asked that my body be used in whatever way is most needed: organ donation if possible crime lab studies med school use fueling someone’s stove or whatever. I’m considering a donation to that Bodyworks plasticizing group but I missed the exhibition so I can’t be sure if that’s how I want my body used.
In the(se moments that I hope aren’t too close to the) end. I really don’t care about my body and if any family member wants some of me I’ll put in my will that they can have my teeth. Those make interesting necklaces.
Before I moved. I was a member of my synagogue’s burial society which is a group of volunteers who help prepare people for burial. The body is not embalmed but is respectfully washed wrapped in linen and placed in a plain pine box. I don’t think it was ever pitched to anyone as “green” but it is and it doesn’t involve pushing the family to pay for expensive trappings. I would assume that a funeral home or a church group could do the same thing.
If you can think of one try to specify a non-church location where you would want your friends and family to get together to mingle and talk — a park a theater a bar your favorite restaurant etc. That way it’s easier for your executor to stand up to your family if they try to insist that you “really” would have wanted a service in a church you never attended.
I’m also of the “useful parts” school — take what other people need and burn the rest. After hearing a series on a gross anatomy class on NPR if I live to an age where I don’t have many useful parts left. I may donate my body to science and have the cremated remains returned to my family. Since we’re a two-state family. I’d probably want to divide my ashed and a little niche somewhere here in California and another near my mother’s grave in Illinois.
My husband and I already have our plots on either side of our daughter’s grave. We wouldn’t have thought about it except for her death. My mother’s will be adjacent and south of ours my in-laws will be adjacent and south and west. (thank goodness I don’t believe in an afterlife forever with my mother would kill me if I wasn’t already dead)
We haven’t figured out what we’re doing with our bodies though. I know the hubby wants to be buried in a casket and all that. No religion though. If I die before him he’ll donate my parts like I’ve asked and bury me in the casket and all that. If he dies before me. I’ll have my parts donated be cremated and buried. He really has issues with cremation that I don’t have and he would never go along with cremating me.
My grandpa all I know is that his wishes specify that the last song played at his funeral be “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” (father of 4 girls grandfather to 4 girls greatgrandfather to 1 girl).
I appreciate this topic. I met a woman who served on our state’s cemetery licensing board. She had actual horror stories about the practices of some operators like selling plots in wetlands or otherwise unsuitable locations.
I don’t think you can safely bank on plots as real estate. The big threat comes from what happens after all the plots are filled. Care of the site is then dependent on the financial health of the operator.
Cincinnati had an awful case where the owner basically and the he owned. It turned into a big case not only because it was a disgusting display of human behavior but because the various governments didn’t want to set the precedent of letting cemeteries default on their obligations knowing that the government would.
Definitely try to see the exhibit before you make that commitment. I’m fascinated by anatomy and not at all squeamish about cadavers and I assumed that the criticism stemmed from the attitude that putting the dead on display in any manner is disrespectful so I thought I’d find it really interesting and not offensive in the slightest. When I actually saw it. I was shocked at how sensationalist and not educational the display was and I did find it rather offensive (I’d be happy to elaborate but I’ve already threadjacked enough for one comment
After getting socked for the funeral/memorial service (did you know that in some places you can rent caskets to serve as a placeholder at the service) and for the plots we now have the pleasure of getting a periodic newsletter from the cemetary asking for money. On the one hand they apparently do have some significant extra expenses but on the other. I doubt that any of the folks who paid to be buried there thought their kids and grandkids (and greatgrandkids) would be taking on a continuing expense to prevent mom&dad’s headstone from washing down the hill into the storm drains…
Ravaj per request we all sang “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” at my beloved gram’s burial in May and had a large party at her house decorated with all of her Christmas decorations. It was that or “Ding Dong. The Witch Is Dead”- she was long lovingly referred to as a witch an collected dozens of them.
My mom and I do genealogy together- she bought me cemetery plots for my family in Gram’s cemetery years ago for Christmas. Won a local newspaper’s contest of “Strangest Gift Ever” one year with THAT entry!
I haven’t made any written wishes though I’ve discussed it with my parents and my boyfriend. I want my organs donated. I thought of donating my body to science until a doctor friend of mine stressed that donating the organs is much more important and does much more good. If they have to cremate the rest then so be it although I’d really rather have the rest buried in a burlap sack with a tree planted on it. I won’t be using it; it might as well return to nature as fast as possible.
This weekend I went to a memorial service that was just like that. People read poems and pieces that reminded them of the deceased and told stories laughed and cried. I think that’s the best way.
i’ve been an industry insider (mortuary science college graduate funeral director) long enough to know more than a few things about the industry my grandparents ran their own funeral home for over thirty years; but it was a “mom-n-pop” funeral home; my grandfather once said that if you hurt your reputation you might as well close the doors because it’s over the days of the “mom-n-pop’s” are long gone enter the giant corporate monoliths; SCI. Stewart Corp. etc i have experience at the former they are so brazen they will push for pre-need sales within days of a family losing a loved one it’s completely unconscionable what they do so by design i hope to become the most hated man in the funeral industry you can see why over @ it’s time someone went on a crusade to fight back against this type of thing.
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http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2007/12/08/the-death-merchants-scam-you-to-the-very-end/
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