The person I spoke to at the cemetery said he personally did not set prices—that was the responsibility of the out-of-state corporate office. He did say that the gentleman in my office would be refunded if he was unhappy with the price. Yet that is the only case in my experience thus far that concluded well for the consumer.
I dealt with a funeral recently in which the wife of a gentleman who had died on a Friday came to me to make funeral arrangements on Saturday morning. When our conversation came to caskets, she lowered her head and told me that she had probably done a “dumb thing.” When I asked what, she explained that she and her late husband had been solicited by phone by a cemetery salesperson a few months ago. The salesperson informed the couple that the call was to verify ownership of their two grave spaces. The couple was told that they needed to come to the cemetery and sign a lot-ownership card to update the cemetery records.
Worrying that something could be amiss with their side-by-side final resting places, the couple dutifully went to the cemetery and not only updated cemetery records but also allowed themselves to be talked into purchasing two overpriced burial vaults, a double bronze grave marker, and two overpriced steel caskets. The cemetery salesperson told the couple that cemetery vaults were much better than any offered by funeral homes, that the bronze marker could be purchased only from the cemetery, and that the caskets were priced lower than funeral homes could offer—all of which is untrue.
I looked over the cemetery sales contract with the bereaved wife and let her know that I could provide her with a much better price on all the items she had purchased. She seemed relieved at the notion and asked me to do just that. I called the cemetery and mentioned that the woman wished to cancel the purchase of the vaults, marker, and caskets. The cemetery salesperson transferred me to the manager and I was informed that there was no way they would refund her money.
I had the conversation on speakerphone, and the bereaved woman asked me to hang up so we could speak privately. She hung her head and told me that she had lost her husband and that she was in no mood to fight with the cemetery at this time and to just move forward with the funeral arrangements and the cemetery purchases. I agreed and realized that this is exactly what the conglomerate cemeteries know—when a death occurs most bereaved folks are in no state of mind to dispute a contract. They just call it a bad idea and a learning experience and move on.
Conglomerates used to be wiser about carrying out a proper takeover. They would pay the former owner a monthly or yearly fee to stay on, work the front door, and otherwise make an appearance when appropriate, so the unsuspecting public would assume that it was business as usual. Perhaps the locals had heard rumblings about the funeral home’s having been sold—only to be reassured when they saw the former owner ensconced in the entryway. In impersonal metropolitan areas, such a takeover usually goes unnoticed. The Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home, undertaker to the stars in the Big Apple, is corporately owned and operated, but Mr. Campbell is nowhere to be seen. Joseph Gawler’s, the premier funeral home in Washington, D.C., serving presidents and diplomats, is also corporately owned. Mr. Gawler isn’t there either.
I have a problem with such name retention. It’s misleading. Consolidators try to mask new ownerships so that locals will believe that the same funeral home that buried Grandpa is burying Grandma. In Ohio, a law once required that after twenty-four months, a new owner of a funeral home must incorporate his or her surname at the beginning or end of the firm title. In other words, if Joe Jones purchased the Smith Funeral Home, he had two years to change the name of the business to either Smith and Jones Funeral Home, Jones and Smith Funeral Home, or Jones Funeral Home. The law was designed to keep owners from taking advantage of a well-known person’s notoriety. Otherwise you could name your business the Jack Nicklaus Funeral Home. Ohio also didn’t allow funeral homes to be titled any other way except by the funeral director or owner’s surname—no Chapel of Chimes Funeral Home or House of Compassion Funeral Home. Whether because of a payoff by the conglomerates or not, I do not know, but Ohio no longer requires a name change. The original can stay. The business manager must merely have his or her name on a plaque in a visible location.
Just as in most huge takeovers, the bigger it gets, the worse it becomes. A friend works at a home bought for the second time by a conglomerate. He no longer makes any funeral arrangements himself because of severe criticism from the corporate office. Early on, after having faxed a contract for goods and services for review, he would receive a scathing reprimand. He was told he should have upgraded the client family to a more expensive casket and a costlier vault, and he should have recommended the $300 Thomas Kinkade register-book package.
On-site decisions, my friend tells me, are no longer permitted. Even a leaky toilet requires a work order forwarded to the California office, where a district manager dispatches a maintenance technician to troubleshoot. Three labor estimates are required, with proper authorization for any repairs costing more than $100.
Large conglomerates such as Houston’s Service Corporation International, Canada’s Alderwoods, and Louisiana’s Stewart Enterprises, to name only three, have encountered some difficulties when buying up funeral home properties in smaller markets across the country. When they overpay it means that their customers experience price increases to make up for it. I have gained quite a bit of new business from disgruntled families who used carpetbagger homes for previous deaths, only to be shocked at the staggering price increases they faced when they returned there for another family member. Some Alderwoods-owned funeral homes actually lowered their prices at some locations after several consumer complaints and business slowdowns. Alderwoods used to be known as the Loewen Group and is now supposedly emerging from bankruptcy proceedings. Service Corporation International has also been involved in bad publicity, accused of unlicensed embalming in Texas and of recycling graves (reselling those already occupied) in Florida.
Conglomerates are also known for hiring newly licensed embalmers and funeral directors for the obvious reason of being able to pay them less. The funeral industry, like teaching, police work, and medicine, is a place where there is simply no substitute for experience and knowing the answers to questions before they are asked.
Part of the slowdown in recent high-dollar acquisitions is attributed to the fact that many former funeral home owners are tiring of hearing from past customers about their distaste for the new corporate ownership. Smaller town directors are usually happy when a competitor sells out to a big conglomerate. Since everybody likes to tell a story better than the last person who told it, word travels fast when a home is sold. You can bet that the family personnel will tell anyone who will listen that a carpetbagger is now in operation.
Two decades ago, the Federal Trade Commission began an investigation that eventually led to the 1984 Funeral Rule, which forced funeral homes to disclose their prices and to charge consumers for individual services rather than a blanket service charge. That service charge had included removal of the deceased from the place of death, embalming (if requested), cosmetics and dressing, arranging and coordination of services, use of facilities for visitation and ceremony, use of related equipment, transportation to the cemetery, secretarial work and bookkeeping, insurance overhead, and licensing fees. It was imposed on every client, regardless of need, and presented to each family as a lump sum, ranging (in today’s dollars) from $2,800 to $4,500, depending on the region. Funeral homes on the East and West coasts generally charged at the higher end. The FTC now requires that funeral homes explain to families how they arrive at their amounts, complete with detailed invoices.