Summarised from an extraordinarily vituperative Internet Website entitled 'Funerals and Rip-offs', managed by a body calling itself the Interfaith Funeral Information Committee and located at <http://www.xroads.com/~funerals>.
Lycos in reviewing this site writes: "According to the information here, the funeral industry [in the US] is one of the most rapacious around, regularly engaging in price-gouging and deceptive practices. Balance isn't the issue here. The point of view is strong and holds that it's not just a minority of morticians who engage in these practices, but most of them, often marking up the price of caskets as much as 900 per cent."
UK readers need to be aware that "mortuary" in the following account means "undertaking service". Some of the warnings and advice below are relevant to a UK audience, and may become more so as the American firm SCI consolidates its grip on the UK funeral market.
- In 1980, in Colorado, the Catholic Archdiocese of Denver opened a low-priced mortuary at its Mount Olivet Cemetery. It opened the mortuary partly because there were no funeral prices in the Denver area which many low-income families could afford. The mortuary found that it could pay the highest salaries in the area, rent, and the taxes and fees paid by other mortuaries - and charge one half the price of the lowest-priced mortuary in the Denver area. (Eleven mortuaries immediately sued the archdiocese but dropped the case before it went to court.)
- In 1981, in Illinois, Rabbi Sholom Singer of Chicago felt that morticians
had moved in and taken over what used to be a major function of Jewish communal
life. He stated: "When a man is bar-mitzvahed, it is done in a synagogue.
... All of a sudden on the day of death, we take him for a ride - literally
- and dump him in a Skokie death palace. ... I am out to recapture one of
the major functions of Jewish life."
- In 1986, in Canada, a pastor, Rev. Eloi Arsenault, because of the high
prices charged by local mortuaries, assisted his parishioners and the Knights
of Columbus to open the first funeral co-op mortuary in the Province of
Prince Edward Island. Parish members fixed up the church to handle all wakes
and services; and the co-op rented a basement room in one church and set
up an embalming room. The president of the province's Funeral Directors
Association responded by stating: "Funerals don't belong in the church"
Morticians demanded that the Catholic bishop close the mortuary and expel
the priest from the diocese. The bishop responded that he would do neither
but was encouraging all churches to set up co-op mortuaries.
Several other co-ops opened in the months following this. Community members of various faiths operate the co-ops and charge about one-third as much as commercial firms. Father Eloi says: "It's more human to have a funeral in your own surroundings. The people in this area have been baptised here, received the sacraments here, and it's appropriate that they have their funeral in their own church. Why shouldn't they be looked after by their Christian brethren and family members?" By 1997, church groups and Knights of Columbus had opened twelve co-op mortuaries in the Provinces of Prince Edward Island (7 mortuaries), New Brunswick (4) and Nova Scotia (1).
- In 1992, in Arizona, Rev. Henry Wasielewski, administrator of a Catholic
church near Phoenix, wrote a letter to the Melcher Mortuary: "There
is no need for deliverymen unaccustomed to Catholic liturgy and not members
of the family or the parish to insert themselves into our sacred liturgy
and processions when they are not needed and are not requested to do so
by the priest. ... Mortuary and transport service employees regularly disrupt
the attention of congregations with their attempts to imitate Catholic genuflections
(kneeling) ... to act as ushers during Mass even though we have trained
and appointed ushers present ... (and) pass out mortuary literature ...
advertising literature (and) pre-pay plan leaflets (which give the impression
that the church recommends harmful pre-pay plans which national consumer
groups tell people to avoid) - all without permission or even a word to
the priests. One mortician even asked me (to) cut the funeral to about 25
minutes because he needed the hearse for another funeral. I explained that
the family deserved to have the whole Catholic liturgy they expected and
that he had better find another hearse."
- In 1997, in the USA, ads encouraging readers to urge their denominations
and dioceses to open fair-priced mortuaries are being placed in religious
periodicals by a group, Catholics for Fair Funeral Prices. The ads list
low, reasonable prices for funerals, caskets and cremation - compared with
widespread, unfair, rising prices - and invite readers to phone several
mortuaries to compare their prices with those in the ads. The ads warn about
huge corporations' massive buyouts of mortuaries and cemeteries in nearly
every community, followed by the raising of all area prices. There is also
increasing abuse of family or religious traditions, passing of unfair laws,
etc. The ads seek to inform the public and clergy about prices and abuses,
and to motivate them to ask their denominations and dioceses to follow their
duty to act for justice to protect families, especially the poor and elderly,
by opening fair-priced mortuaries. Small mortuaries can be added inexpensively
at their cemeteries (just as chains are opening mortuaries at cemeteries
they acquire). Chapels aren't needed; all services can be held at families'
churches.
- This website reveals the confidential low wholesale prices of caskets
(kept 'top secret' from the media for decades), with hundreds of beautiful
metal caskets in many models and colours, costing only 245 to $450
wholesale (with colour photos).
There is an extortionate mark-up on caskets - often 300 per cent to 900 per cent over the wholesale cost (that is, four to ten times wholesale) - higher mark-ups than in any other industry, often thousands of dollars' profit on each casket costing only a few hundred dollars,
- Deceptive practices include: legislation designed to increase profits, deceptive literature, fraudulent advertising, 'gifts and bribes' to the clergy, high-pressure sales tactics, coaxing or shaming families to buy higher-priced items, cemetery rip-offs, costly pre-pay plans and deceptive contracts, etc.; and the previously unknown daily destruction of bodies and bursting caskets caused by fraudulent 'protective seals' on 25-75 year warranted caskets (revealed for the first time to the media and public by this website in December 1995, with corroborating statements by industry experts).
Casket manufacturers, distributors, mortuaries, pre-pay plans and cemeteries are now losing millions in lawsuits filed by families who are learning that their outrageously costly, "75-year warranted," "leak-proof" caskets are leaking within six or seven years.
- Complete 'traditional' funeral with an attractive metal casket for
$1,700 to $2,200 total (caskets in a variety of colours) should be available
to families in most communities (not the $3,000 to $10,000 charged for the
same services and caskets by most mortuaries). Most families don't know
that there is a great difference in price among mortuaries for the same
services and caskets; media need to tell them this.
- Many beautiful metal casket models in many colours for $350 to $900 should
be available to all families (not the $1,000 to $3,000 charged for these
caskets by most morticians. Morticians can obtain hundreds of these models
in many colours for low wholesale prices of $245 to $450.) Be ready to obtain
a casket from a fair-priced casket store or a national distributor if a
mortuary does not offer these fair prices. (Mortuaries are required by law
to accept a casket that you obtain elsewhere. Casket stores and national
distributors can deliver caskets to mortuaries within a few hours.)
- 'Direct cremation' for $350 to $550 total (not the $750 to $4,000 charged
by many mortuaries) should be available to all families. (This price includes
all mortuary and crematory charges - including transportation of
body, all documents, corrugated cremation body container, cremation fee,
and small cardboard or plastic box or urn in which ashes are returned. 'Direct'
cremation does not usually include viewing or memorial services.)
- Use a reasonably priced mortuary - regardless of its location, even
if it is 50 miles away. Fair-priced morticians, even 50 miles away, will
be happy to accommodate you, often at prices a half or a third of nearby
mortuaries.
- Because of the great difference in prices amongst mortuaries for the same
items and services, mortuaries are the only industry required by the Federal
Trade Commission (FTC) to give their prices over the phone. Media need to
tell families that they may have to call ten or more mortuaries in order
to find one of the few fair-priced ones.
- A few morticians have said that they deserve high profit because "how
would you like to be called away from your family dinner on Christmas or
called in the middle of the night to pick up a body?" They neglect
to mention that millions of other people work on Christmas day or all night
in factories and restaurants, or are on-call at all hours, as paramedics,
wrecker drivers, etc - and don't claim that this gives them the right to
charge rip-off prices.
- Darryl Robert's new book (March '97), Profits of Death - An insider
exposes the death care industries, and other experts advise: Plan ahead
(compare mortuary prices by phone; ask them to mail a price list); consider
cremation (costs much less than a funeral); shop around when selecting a
funeral home (phone for prices); Know what is required (embalming is not
required); select a casket (buy from a casket store; don't buy a harmful
'protective seal' casket); opening/closing the grave (excavation companies
often charge 50 per cent less than a cemetery to dig and fill the grave);
select a location for the service (have services at a church, temple, or
meeting hall; usually less-costly than at mortuary); eliminate the frills
(buy guest book, cards, etc., at a stationery store for much less than at
mortuary)")
- The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires all mortuaries to allow families
to use caskets which they construct themselves or buy from another mortuary
or other source. Mortuaries cannot charge a 'handling fee', raise their
other prices, or refuse to serve a family which obtains a casket from another
source. If any mortuary objects to a casket delivery, tell the mortician
that you will immediately call the FTC's 'Funeral Rule' office, 1-202-326-3128
or 3064, or your state Attorney General's consumer office. The mortuary
will immediately co-operate.
- Morticians know that most families won't move the body to a lower-priced
mortuary because they don't know where one is because they haven't phoned
any for prices - or they don't know that they have the right to move the
body to another firm (or morticians tell them falsely that it's too late
to move the body or say falsely that it will cost a lot to do it).
- Robert Waltrip, founder of SCI (Service Corporation International), Houston, the world's largest chain of mortuaries, with a profit margin nearly twice the average of all American companies - they controlled 2,795 mortuaries, 324 cemeteries and 138 crematoriums in March 1996; they are the largest funeral service provider in England; they have bought the largest chain in France. They have $1.7 billion in annual sales, $2.4 billion in pre-paid plan funerals. Waltrip's salary averaged more than $9 million a year recently, according to The Crystal Report, which said he is the twelfth most overpaid executive in the US, with a salary about $7 million higher than the average of Chief Executive Officers of comparable companies.
Interfaith Funeral Information Committee and Arizona Consumers Council, IFC/Web, P.O. Box 939, Tempe, AZ 85280, USA (tel 001 602 253 6814; e-mail: <funerals@xroads.com>; web: <http://www.xroads.com/~funerals>).
See also the Natural Death Centre's information about the States.
This webpage forms part of the Global Ideas Bank (www.globalideasbank.org).
Book Orders: To order any of the other Natural Death Centre or Global Ideas Bank books.
To make a comment or to send an update, please e-mail the Global Ideas
Bank at rhino@dial.pipex.com and
please say which web page address you are commenting on.
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