Lamar W. Hankins : Selling Cremation Door-to-Door

Neptune Society mailer. Image from Boing Boing.

Consumer beware!
Selling cremation door-to-door

I was treated to a sales pitch full of misleading or outright false claims, all to get me to pay more than double the cost for a simple cremation in the Austin area.

By Lamar W. Hankins /The Rag Blog / February 19, 2013

SAN MARCOS, Texas -- I just had the opportunity to be a “secret shopper” -- from the convenience of my dining room table.

Over the years, I have occasionally received solicitations from funeral homes or cremation services to encourage me to “pre-arrange” funerals or cremations. In recent months, I received two such solicitations from the Neptune Society. I responded to the last one, sending back their card and checking the box that indicated I wanted to receive more information.

That information came through a phone call a couple of weeks ago asking if one of their representatives could visit me in my home. I said “yes” and a nice fellow showed up. His card identified him as an “Austin Area Counselor,” for Neptune Society, “America’s Most Trusted Cremation Services.” I was treated to a sales pitch full of misleading or outright false claims, all to get me to pay more than double the cost for a simple cremation in the Austin area.

It was obvious that he knew nothing about me, or he probably would not have made the 45-minute drive to my home from his Austin location. I have spent the last 20 years as a volunteer advocate for funeral consumers with the Austin Memorial & Burial Information Society (AMBIS), as well as 18 years working as a volunteer with the national organization with which AMBIS is an affiliate, Funeral Consumers Alliance (FCA), and writing about the funeral business.

The counselor and I spent an hour and a half discussing pre-arrangement options that Neptune offers. The best one, from Neptune’s perspective, is being offered right now at a $150 discount, so the cost to me would be only $2,255.

Leading up to my request to know the price of the service was about an hour of information about the plan, and information he had gathered about what a few other funeral homes in the Austin area charge. The counselor had no way of knowing that just four days earlier, Nancy Walker (President of the AMBIS board) and I had finished surveying the prices of funerals and cremations for the 51 funeral services located in the Austin area.

It is noteworthy that the counselor mentioned that Neptune is owned by SCI, the largest funeral provider in the world. Based on his inflection and the look on his face, I think I was supposed to be impressed by this. But I have written about SCI many times over the last 20 years, discussed legal problems with SCI’s legal staff, and had my own battles with them on behalf of my family over cemetery plots. Their world-wide activity and reputation was not news to me.

It surprised me that Neptune uses the outrageous charges at SCI facilities to show how much better its prices are -- its counselor cited rates at several SCI locations that were much higher than Neptune’s. But it wasn’t a fair comparison; in most cases, what the counselor showed me were prices for elaborate cremation and related services, not Direct Cremation prices. Direct Cremation is universally defined as a simple cremation without a viewing or ceremony.

When the counselor did show me a price from other providers for Direct Cremation, he pointed out that there were many hidden costs not covered by their prices (e.g., refrigeration, crematory fee). But all of his examples were for prices higher than Neptune’s.

For a few people, the best part of Neptune’s plan is that it includes -- for $474 -- a “Transportation and Relocation Plan.” This is worthwhile if you are traveling overseas and die on the trip, but the contract for transportation services is not with Neptune. Instead Neptune is a third-party seller for the Medical Air Services Association (MASA). Based on the contract, it appears that MASA will transport the body to the nearest licensed crematory and will return the cremated remains as per the Neptune agreement.

The counselor tried to convince me that the transport agreement was also very useful in the event I died while on a trip to the Texas coast (about a three and a half hour drive). He explained that a funeral home at the coast would have to take custody of my body and be paid for shipping it back to Austin for cremation. He did not know that I knew this was complete nonsense.

If I die down at the coast, my chosen cremation provider in the Austin area could merely arrange for a funeral home, mortuary service, or crematory in the area where I died to handle the cremation for a low wholesale trade price -- probably about $400 -- and send the cremated remains to the Austin area funeral service. My family would pay my chosen provider’s cost for direct cremation and receive my cremated remains.

I’ve had personal experience with this. When my brother died 12 years ago, an Austin funeral home arranged his cremation in the county of his death, and my parents, who lived in that county, picked up his cremated remains directly from the local funeral provider where he died, paying the Austin funeral home for the entire cost.

Next, the counselor tried to shock me by saying that funeral prices double every seven to 10 years. I happen to have funeral cost surveys that AMBIS has done for many years, so I compared the costs from 2000 with those in 2012. Direct cremation averaged $1,468 in our 2000 survey. In 2012, the average cost was $1,899 – a 29% increase, not twice the cost from12 years earlier. Of course, a lot of those increased costs can be attributed to SCI funeral homes. Their cremation costs rose about 62% during this same period.

In addition, the counselor told me that cremation in Central Texas averages $2,700-plus, which is just not true. The 2013 AMBIS annual survey just published and available online shows the average cost of cremation for the 51 funeral providers priced is $2,053, nearly $650 less than the counselor claimed.

Of course, the counselor also did not tell me that I do not have to pay the average price. I can get Direct Cremation for as little as $695 from two providers, and for $775 or less from three others. This compares favorably with 2000 prices, which were $725 from two providers and $740 from another. So competition has made the lowest-cost Direct Cremation less in 2013 than in it was in 2000.

But those were not the only misleading statistics the counselor gave me. He told me that most funeral homes have two price increases yearly. Because we do an annual survey, we know that this is not true for most funeral homes. A handful have annual price increases, but many go two or three years without increases. In my experience, the number of increases has more to do with the general economy and the popularity of cremation, which takes business away from funeral services, than with any other factors.

However, one funeral director told me recently that SCI was the best thing that ever happened to him. Because of SCI’s high prices, he can charge more and still offer a better deal than SCI funeral homes. Most of the Cook-Walden chain, which is owned by SCI, charges $2,740 for Direct Cremation at four of its five locations.

I was a bit startled when the counselor told me that Clark Howard, the radio consumer advisor, recommends the Neptune Society. For many years, Howard was a member of the Honorary Advisory Board of the Funeral Consumers Alliance (FCA), for which I spent about eight years serving as a member of its board of directors, including four as President. To my knowledge, Howard has never endorsed pre-paying for funerals or cremation. A search of his website turned up no mention of the Neptune Society. One entry by Howard in 2010 had this to say:

Pre-paying for funerals not a Clark Smart option

RIP-OFF ALERT: The Wall Street Journal reports some 20 million people have pre-paid for funerals to relieve their survivors of the obligation at the time of their death. While that sounds good in theory, pre-paying for a funeral in practice has involved bad purchases, theft of funds, insolvency and other assorted gotchas.

What exactly are the problems? To begin, Americans move a lot. Where you live at age 50 -- when people typically start pre-paying for funerals -- may not be where you'll be living at the time of death. Unfortunately, when you move in the future, the way pre-paids work is that you forfeit much of the money.

Second, your end-of-life wishes may change over time. It used to be that only one in four people opted for cremation. That's become about one in three in recent years.

Meanwhile, future projections show that cremation may soon become the dominant method of disposition, perhaps because a cremation can be much cheaper than a traditional burial.

Another problem has been outright theft of money by shady funeral home operators -- despite state efforts to crack down on shenanigans. . . .

So what should you do? Clark prefers that you pre-plan (but not necessarily pre-pay) through a local non-profit memorial society. Visit Funerals.org for more info.

That link is to the FCA website.

To help understand better Clark Howard’s advice, it is instructive to look at what happens to the $2,255 the Neptune Society charges during their special promotion:

• $730 goes into a trust and is not touched until you die and the cremation is actually done;
• $1,051.11 (includes some state taxes) is taken outright by the Neptune society and the customer is given several items of merchandise when the contract is signed. That merchandise includes a wooden “memento chest” which houses a wooden urn, a photo keepsake, 25 “Thank You” cards, and a “Neptune Information Book,” all of which costs Neptune no more than about $200 wholesale. This means that Neptune can immediately pocket about $750 (the tax must be paid);
• $474 is allocated for the transportation plan, all of which, presumably, will be divided between MASA and Neptune at the sale of the pre-paid plan.

It appears, then, that at least half of the funds paid for the pre-arrangement contract can be spent by Neptune, perhaps years before it performs any service other than providing the merchandise to the purchaser. A purchaser of such prepaid services could lose a substantial amount of money if the purchaser’s plans change a year or two later.

However, Neptune does offer a unique benefit at no additional cost. If the purchaser has a child or grandchild who dies before that person’s 21st birthday, Neptune will provide an identical cremation for the deceased child or grandchild. It is difficult to find the data on deaths of those under 21 years of age in the U.S., but it is unlikely that this should be a major incentive for purchasing a pre-paid cremation, though it may have emotional appeal for some.

The counselor made the customary pitch that paying in advance will give both me and my family peace of mind, and everything will be paid for. However, the contract identifies 12 items that may require additional payments at the time of death, such as placement of obituaries, flowers, and other service-related expenses. It is simply wrong to mislead families with a sales pitch that is belied by the very contract used in the transaction.

The total contract and related documents run to 13 pages, all of which need to be carefully reviewed. The counselor told me that Neptune gives customers a full 30 days to change their minds. However, I could find nothing about this 30-day rescission promise in any of the contract documents.

Neptune’s counselor offered another tidbit of false information, as well. He claimed that one of the funeral services in San Marcos required a casket for cremation, rather than the less expensive cardboard container used by Neptune. However, the price lists for all three funeral homes in San Marcos offer a cardboard container for Direct Cremation. Besides, both federal and state regulations bar funeral homes from requiring a casket for cremation.

The bottom line regarding pre-paid funeral and cremation contracts is the same today as it was 20 years ago when I started doing funeral consumer advocacy work. Only those in very unusual or special circumstances -- someone with no family or friends to make disposition arrangements, or someone who is making final arrangements before becoming eligible for Medicaid -- actually need to pre-pay for burial or cremation. As always -- Buyer Beware!

[Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, city attorney, is also a columnist for the San Marcos Mercury. This article © Freethought San Marcos, Lamar W. Hankins. Read more articles by Lamar W. Hankins on The Rag Blog.]

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Lamar W. Hankins : A Texas Funeral and the Failure of Regulation

A "Heritage of Service": Sunset Memorial Funeral Home in Odessa, Texas. Image from website.
A Texas funeral:
A case study in the failure of regulation

By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog / May 16, 2012

[Regular Rag Blog contributor Lamar Hankins has for over 20 years served as an advocate for families who have to deal with the funeral industry. Most of that work has been done with the Austin Memorial and Burial Information Society (AMBIS) and with the national organization with which it is affiliated, the Funeral Consumers Alliance (FCA). He has written about this subject previously on The Rag Blog. ]

In 1984, sweeping new regulations written by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) went into effect. The regulations, which are referred to as the Funeral Rule, were intended to keep funeral homes from engaging in deceptive practices in their dealings with the public.

Many states, including Texas, adopted the same or similar regulations and were charged by state law with enforcing these regulations. That task in Texas is the responsibility of the Texas Funeral Service Commission (TFSC). Unfortunately, the FTC takes no enforcement actions in response to most complaints.

A recent experience showed me that federal and state regulations aren’t worth John Nance Garner’s proverbial “bucket of warm spit” because state officials will not protect families from abuse by the funeral industry.

The funeral home that carried out my father-in-law’s 2010 funeral hid important and legally required information from my family, lied to them in order to up-sell them to a more expensive casket, shut out the pallbearers from performing their duties, and then lied to the state regulatory investigators when we complained.

Much worse, though, was the flaccid response from the TFSC. Instead of compelling the funeral home to address our grievances, which the TFSC agreed were valid, it allowed the business to misrepresent the facts and skate free with a classic “no-apology” apology, and a tap on the wrist for good measure.


Failure at the funeral home

In 2010, after the death of my father-in-law, his funeral was held at Sunset Memorial Funeral Home in Odessa, Texas. The business is a combination funeral home and cemetery, with the funeral home located on the same property as the cemetery.

Just under two years earlier, my mother-in-law had died and her services were held at the same location. Everyone in the family was pleased with her services, so we expected that everything would go just as well with my father-in-law’s services. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

I waited until four months after the services to write the funeral home and file a complaint with the TFSC about both the violations of federal and state regulations, and the poor funeral practices we experienced. Sunset had committed three flagrant violations of the Funeral Rule that I knew about.

1. The funeral home did not provide a Statement of Goods and Services selected (an itemized receipt and contract for the funeral transaction) until after the funeral, even though regulations clearly require that this occur before the funeral.

About an hour after my father-in-law’s burial concluded, a funeral director appeared at my father-in-law’s home, where the family had gathered to visit and share our memories. The funeral director met with my brother-in-law and requested that he sign the Statement of Goods and Services and pay for the funeral at that time. He was not willing at that time to break away from other family members to take care of this commercial transaction and told the funeral director that he would take care of the bill the next day.

My brother-in-law signed the Statement of Goods and Services and the funeral director left. The total amount billed -- $8,177 -- was paid the next day.

2. The most egregious violation of regulations -- it can only be called fraud -- is that the funeral director falsely dated the Statement of Goods and Services to a date that preceded the funeral by three days, falsely indicating that the Statement had been received and signed before the funeral. This incident was witnessed by my sister-in-law, and recounted to me, my wife, and her sister soon afterward.

3. Contrary to law and regulation, a funeral director from Sunset told my family that so-called “cremation” caskets could not be used for burial. This is a flagrant violation of the federal and state regulations that prohibit making false, deceptive, or misleading statements about the sale or use of merchandise.

Faced with this deception at a time of great stress, my family chose a more expensive “burial” casket rather than prolong the arrangement conference over this issue.

In addition to these three violations of the Funeral Rule, numerous other matters were mishandled by the funeral home staff. They demonstrate that a funeral home that does a good job one day can perform like uncaring amateurs on another, especially when making as much money as possible takes precedence over serving a grieving family.

When the staff picked up my father-in-law’s body at his home on the day of his death, my family was asked to sign a form giving permission to embalm the body, and they wanted to know when the funeral would be held.

The three surviving children had not had time to consider questions about the funeral arrangements so soon after the death and refused to sign the permission to embalm form, considering it inappropriate and insensitive to be asked about embalming when the body was being picked up and details of the funeral had not been determined.

Attempting to force such quick decisions on grieving families is an affront to human decency, but I know from experience that it is a technique funeral directors use to increase the cost of funerals.

As it turned out, my father-in-law’s body was not embalmed and the family paid $495 for refrigeration for five days. While all funeral homes can charge whatever amount they want, charging $495 for refrigeration -- a service that costs no more than $1.00 a day (according to the manufacturers of funerary refrigeration equipment) -- is outrageous price-gouging.

And the family was charged $495 for “other preparation” of the body. However, there was no “other preparation” to be done to my father-in-law’s body since it was not an open casket service and his body was not viewed at the visitation.

On the day that the obituary needed to be filed, the funeral director did not notify the family of a 2 p.m. deadline set by the local newspaper until a few hours before the deadline, though he had known of the deadline when he agreed to handle the funeral.

This created unnecessary grief and anxiety as the survivors scrambled to make sure the notice would appear in time for friends and acquaintances to learn of the death and know when and where the funeral would be held.

A visitation with family and friends was scheduled for the evening before the funeral service. The funeral director promised that the service program would be available for proofreading no later than the time of the visitation, but it wasn’t.

As a result, corrections were being made to the service program the next day, after guests had arrived for the funeral service. Astonishingly, the names of all the pallbearers had been omitted from the program.

And there were other problems, such as the incorrect spelling of my father-in-law’s name on a DVD of family pictures prepared by the funeral home, and the backward display on the casket of a blanket that included the logo of my father-in-law’s alma mater.

At the cemetery, the funeral director gave no instructions to the pallbearers. To the family’s shock and dismay, the pallbearers were not allowed to act as pallbearers at all: The funeral director told some cemetery grounds workers to place my father-in-law’s casket on top of a small green garden wagon and wheel it to the gravesite, some 300 feet from the chapel where the service was held.

The cemetery workers were wheeling the casket to the gravesite as we exited our cars that had been in the funeral procession following a winding route through the cemetery. The pallbearers did not even have an opportunity to get to the hearse before the garden wagon was loaded by the workers. The family could not imagine why the funeral director did not allow the pallbearers to perform their expected role.

Finally, the funeral home’s itemized receipt for goods and services (in reality, a contract) included a provision under the heading “TERMS AND CONDITIONS,” that requires arbitration of “ANY CLAIM OR CONTROVERSY” or “ANY CLAIM OR DISPUTE BETWEEN OR AMONG THE SELLER, YOU AS THE PURCHASER, ANY PERSON WHO CLAIMS TO BE A THIRD PARTY BENEFICIARY OF THIS AGREEMENT... .” In plain language, the receipt, which the family was required to sign, forces customers to give up the right to sue the funeral home.

Furthermore, the arbitration provision in the contract appears to be intended to prevent families from making complaints to appropriate authorities. If so, this is a violation of both state and federal regulations pertaining to funeral service. All consumers are allowed by federal and state law to lodge complaints against a funeral service for its misconduct, including violations of pertinent federal and state regulations.

Families should complain about such provisions to regulatory authorities and refuse to sign the agreement until the provisions are struck from the contract. Since I was not a party to the contract, nothing prevented me from filing a complaint.

I have attended many funerals in my life, given the eulogy at several, and have arranged more funerals than have most people. Never have I attended a funeral that was handled as ineptly as was my father-in-law’s funeral. The funeral home did not earn the amount it charged for nearly every service paid for. The casual, incompetent, and insolent behavior of the staff was inexcusable and does a disservice to those funeral establishments that fulfill their duty to families to honor and respect their loved ones.

Sunset funeral home told the TFSC that it would send a letter of apology to the family concerning the rules violations it committed. The letter, however, does not apologize for the rules violations. It apologizes for not “meeting the family's expectations.” At no time did Sunset ever admit that it committed any rules violations, nor did it admit even to performing poorly.


Regulatory indifference

To its credit, the Texas Funeral Service Commission found that the funeral home did violate federal and state regulations pertaining to the Statement of Goods and Services’ falsification and presentation after the funeral, as well as the claim that a cremation casket cannot be used for burial, for which two Letters of Warning were issued.

In addition, the TFSC investigator discovered that Sunset had overcharged for the placement of the two obituaries and had not returned the excess money. The TFSC found that this was a separate violation and required the repayment of the overcharge to the family. A third Letter of Warning was issued for this violation of regulations. But Sunset then took credit in its refund letter to the family for discovering the over-payment for the obituaries, another falsification of the facts by Sunset.

While Sunset was not required to pay a fine or penalty, it was required to provide to the TFSC “a written report that describes the measures taken to implement corrections” of the violations found to have been committed by Sunset. The written reports were to include “the dates those measures were implemented.”

On October 12, 2011, the general manager of the funeral home, Bill Vallie, and the funeral director in charge of my father-in-law’s services, Dudley Chandler, submitted a letter outlining their compliance with the Commission's requirements. The letter clearly indicates that they did not comply with the Commission's directives. T

he letter states that they have periodic training for staff, but there was no indication in their letter that any compliance actions related to the Letters of Warning were taken after the Letters of Warning were sent to them. No dates were provided about when any corrective actions were taken.

After spending 20 years working to educate families about their rights and how to avoid unscrupulous behavior by some funeral directors, it is clear to me that unless funeral homes have to pay substantial monetary penalties for their misconduct, there is little incentive for them to stop their unlawful and deceptive practices.

The fact that there had been no other formal complaints against this funeral home in 30 years (a factor considered by the TFSC) means very little when one considers what it takes for families to make formal complaints. Four family members had to travel substantial distances to Austin to attend an informal conference with the TFSC staff as part of its investigation of this complaint, an investigation that took nearly a year and a half.

Most funeral homes can easily calculate their funeral prices against the likelihood that violations of the rules will result in substantial penalties. Naturally, many decide that it pays in the long run for them to ignore any rules that are inconvenient. This cost-benefit calculation is found in all regulated industries. The only way to overcome it is to base penalties, in part, on the profits made from violating the rules.

The funeral home demonstrated that it has little respect for the authority of the TFSC or the concerns of the family. Sunset funeral home has thumbed its nose at the TFSC and the family by its impudence and noncompliance in responding to the Commission's decisions.

And why shouldn’t they? The Commission was unwilling to take any action to enforce its orders against the funeral home after I pointed out to the Commission’s Executive Director the failure of Sunset to comply.

To add insult to injury, I had to make a Public Information Act request to learn the details of the TFSC’s actions against this funeral home 18 months after I filed the initial complaint.

Because the TFSC refused to make public its findings that the funeral home officials lied about what really happened, the funeral home knows that its tactics have worked and they have skated through this matter with relative ease. The TFSC even allows funeral homes in Texas to use documents they trick families into signing to avoid their compliance with the federal and state regulations. Once funeral homes learn of these regulatory omissions, it is no wonder that many of them use obfuscation and deceit as regular practices in their dealings with Texas families.

As further evidence of the funeral home’s utter indifference to its actions and their effect on grieving families, the funeral home alleged in its communications with the TFSC that I am an "anti-industry advocate.” Even if this were true it is beside the point and an argumentum ad hominem attack, a favorite tactic of scoundrels who have been caught in malfeasance.

In fact, I am a pro-family advocate who believes in holding deceitful funeral homes to account for their wrongdoing.

Clearly, TFSC did not hold this funeral home to account in a fair, satisfactory, or effective manner. The families of Texas deserve better treatment than my family received from either the funeral home or the regulators who are supposed to protect the public. The length of the investigation, the inconvenience to the family, the inadequate penalty, the failure to compel the funeral home to comply with the TFSC’s orders, and Sunset’s violations of rules that have been in effect now for 28 years are all matters that should be remedied by the Texas Legislature.

 It remains to be seen whether there is anyone in that institution who cares enough about Texas families to find remedies to these problems.

[Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, city attorney, is also a columnist for the San Marcos Mercury. This article © Freethought San Marcos, Lamar W. Hankins. Read more articles by Lamar W. Hankins on The Rag Blog.]

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Lamar W. Hankins : Funeral Costs Need not Require Charity

Making an informed decision:
Paying for a funeral need not require charity

Many families succumb to grief, social pressures, and salesmanship by a funeral director and spend much more on the funeral than they can afford.

By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog / January 18, 2012

I was startled last Friday to see a news item in the Austin American-Statesman about a family that needs $8,700 in additional donations to pay for a funeral. It struck me as peculiar for two reasons. I’m surprised that the leading commercial newspaper in central Texas considered the circumstance newsworthy, and in my experience, soliciting money to give to a funeral home does not generate charitable impulses in most people.

For 20 years, I have been an advocate for families who have to deal with the funeral industry. Most of that work has been done with the Austin Memorial and Burial Information Society (AMBIS) and with the national organization with which it is affiliated, the Funeral Consumers Alliance (FCA).

I’ve learned a lot about the funeral industry over that time. I have testified before a U.S. Senate committee looking into fraud and deception in the preneed funeral business, and many times before committees of the Texas Legislature.

I’ve learned that many funeral businesses are operated by kind and caring people who have chosen funeral service as their life’s work. I’ve experienced some of the satisfaction that many of them find in helping people at one of the most difficult times in their lives -- handling the death of a loved one. I’ve also learned that there are vast differences in costs among funeral businesses. What costs $10,000 at one costs only $4,000 at another.

Certainly, there are differences in services from one establishment to the next, but those differences have little to do with the cost of the funeral. They have more to do with the amount of money the funeral business has put into its building, landscaping, and funeral vehicles, as well as its location.

The funeral home chosen by the donation-seeking family is one of the more expensive ones in the Austin area, including the counties of Travis, Williamson, Bastrop, Caldwell, and Hays. Consumers can easily find out about those costs. AMBIS publishes an annual survey of funeral costs it provides free to anyone with access to a computer. The 2012 survey will be available in February.

A quick look at the 2011 price chart reveals that the funeral home chosen by the family seeking donations offers a hypothetical full-service funeral (used to make fair comparisons among all area funeral homes) for about $7,000. That same hypothetical funeral could be purchased at another area funeral home for less than $3,500. In fact, 22 funeral businesses in the survey offered the same funeral for less than $7,000. The description of the hypothetical funeral can be found in the survey’s narrative at the same website link given above.

I don’t begrudge anyone choosing the kind of funeral they want for a loved one, but this family appears to have arranged for a $10,000-plus funeral, including the obituary (from which the Statesman makes a lot of money) and cemetery costs.

It reminded me that the Executive Director of FCA, Josh Slocum, often points out that it is not necessary for any family to spend beyond its means on a funeral if the family will just be diligent consumers and adjust its thinking about how the family can honor the memory of the deceased without spending money it does not have.

After all, we needn’t all drive luxury automobiles, and we needn’t all be buried in $12,000 caskets, especially if we can’t afford those purchases. To read some of Slocum’s ideas about what to do when you can’t afford a funeral, go here.

Many families succumb to grief, social pressures, and salesmanship by a funeral director and spend much more on the funeral than they had intended or can afford. I meet people regularly who borrow $8,000 to $15,000 to pay for a funeral and are left saddled with debt for many years.

Just as there are differences in the costs charged by funeral businesses for the same or similar goods and services, there are differences among funeral directors about how they sell funerals to families. Some actively discourage families from spending beyond their means; others encourage spending as much as they can convince a family to spend.

Families can avoid spending beyond their means in several ways: be prepared for family deaths by having a general idea about what sort of funeral will be wanted when that time comes; ask for help in purchasing the funeral from someone not emotionally involved with the decedent; take advantage of the free resources available to learn about cost differences among the area’s funeral businesses; or do some research on your own.

All funeral establishments are required by federal and state regulations to give out price information over the telephone, and to provide a copy of their General Price List if it is requested in person. In addition, prices are available at many funeral providers’ websites.

When a death is unexpected, families may not have enough money to pay for the kind of funeral they prefer, necessitating a reevaluation of their expectations, or relying on charity to pay for their choices. If a family is indigent, Texas law requires that the county pay for burial or cremation, though such services are usually minimal and families have little or no say about the arrangements.

AMBIS offers in its survey narrative some “Cost-saving suggestions for consumers.” Below is a slightly edited version:

1. Choose immediate burial, a graveside service, or direct cremation followed by a religious or secular memorial service held almost anywhere people can gather together. This choice can reduce funeral costs by 75%. Or choose a reasonably-priced funeral home for 50% savings over average costs. If all services are held at a religious or other facility, the location of the funeral home is not important.


2. Avoid embalming and viewing of the body in the funeral home's parlor, a practice falsely promoted by many funeral directors as essential to the grief process. Instead, display pictures and mementos of the deceased at a gathering where sharing and visiting can occur that focuses on the memories of the deceased, rather than on an elaborately displayed body.
   
   (Embalming is not required by Texas law for any reason, and it has no public health benefits that have been recognized by any public health authority. The industry uses embalming to increase funeral costs dramatically by appealing to a person's desire to preserve and protect the body. Embalming merely slows the natural decomposition process.)


3. If you need a casket, choose the least expensive available (including a cremation casket) and cover it with a flag, the deceased's favorite quilt, a religious pall, or other cloth. The looks of the casket will be unimportant, and the money saved can be put to a use significant to the deceased and survivors. (Remember, consumers can buy a casket from any source or supply their own homemade one without incurring any additional funeral home fees or charges.)


4. Don't be led to believe that the more spent on the funeral or the casket, the greater the love felt for the deceased. Most funeral directors have always been salespeople. To persuade consumers to spend lavishly, unscrupulous funeral directors appeal to feelings of guilt, family pride, and social pressures.


5. Become informed consumers now. The funeral industry has depended on the fact that most consumers avoid death and its trappings until they are in the throes of grief just after the death of a loved one. Such feelings can make anyone vulnerable to exploitation. If faced with this situation, take along a trusted friend for assistance -- one who is less emotionally involved with the dozens of decisions to be made and who can give sound advice and help.


6. Check out religious questions with your minister, priest, rabbi, pastor, or other religious leader, rather than with the funeral director.


7. Compare all the prices in the survey. If a funeral home is willing to gouge consumers for any service, consumers should beware.

By following these and similar suggestions, no family should ever have to beg the public for money to pay a funeral director.

[Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, city attorney, is also a columnist for the San Marcos Mercury. This article © Freethought San Marcos, Lamar W. Hankins. Read more articles by Lamar W. Hankins on The Rag Blog.]

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Lamar W. Hankins : Austin-Area Funeral Homes Mislead the Public

Illustration from Third Eye Blind.
'Compassionate care':
Austin's Charles Walden and
SCI funeral chain mislead public

By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog / May 31, 2011

SAN MARCOS, Texas -- Austin funeral service icon Charles Walden lent his name to a misleading open letter that appeared, apparently as a paid advertisement, in the Austin American-Statesman, page A6, on May 26, 2011.

The purpose of the letter seems to be to convince Austin area readers that the five Cook-Walden funeral service locations in the Austin area are the same now as they have been for the last 100 years. Of course, this is not the case. Cook-Walden originally had just one funeral home 40 years ago. It is now owned by Service Corporation International (SCI) -- the largest funeral and cemetery chain in the world.

According to the history of Cook-Walden funeral services published at its own website, in the late 1800s a funeral home was opened in downtown Austin by Samuel E. Rosengren. In 1920, Charles B. Cook purchased that business. In 1971, Charles Walden purchased Cook Funeral Home. The name was changed to Cook-Walden.

Shortly thereafter, Charles Walden bought two adjacent cemeteries in the Pflugerville area. In 1985, he bought Davis Funeral Home in Georgetown, then Forest Oaks funeral and cemetery in 1992. The two funeral homes at the Pflugerville cemeteries location and on Hwy. 183 at Anderson Mill were built more recently.

In 1997, Cook-Walden sold all of its operations to SCI. The recent open letter in the Statesman claims that in 1993 the Cook-Walden chain joined the Dignity Memorial® network (a registered service mark of SCI). But Cook-Walden could not have joined the Dignity Memorial® network until 2004 because that network did not exist until then, and that network is used only by SCI-owned facilities.

Since SCI’s purchase of the Cook-Walden chain in 1997, Charles Walden has continued to provide some consulting services, though the exact nature of his relationship with SCI is not clear. It is clear that SCI focuses mainly on making profits, which is the primary responsibility of all corporations.

If, as its ad claims, it can provide “compassionate care” in doing so, that is a benefit to families. However, it has a reputation for being extremely uncompassionate to its employees, even when those employees are trying to provide compassionate service to grieving families.

In various on-line forums, employees have long complained about working conditions at SCI. Here are some examples. In May 2011, SCI fired a Washington state employee because she helped transport the body of a five-year-old child to a cemetery after the girl’s family conducted its own home funeral. The employee failed to obtain a needed permit for the transportation of the child’s body, but this is merely a minor “paperwork” violation of state regulations.

Other former employees of SCI have posted notices on-line about their opinions of SCI (these are reproduced with typos intact as written):

“I am a funeral director and embalmer for SCI. It is a terrible company to work for, and I would discourage anyone from applying with them. The management is terrible, from the top all the way down the the location manager. You have no home life, you are expected to get the work done, but get in trouble for getting overtime hours. There is no such thing as christmas bonuses or raises in this company. You are not respected as a professional in your field. Bottom line, in my oppinion, this company cares about nothing but money. I got into this field to help people, not rob them without a gun.”

“This place is horrible! We got baught by SCI about 3 years ago and its been down hill from there. We've had 4 different managers. The average employee leaves within a few years. Im on my fourth year and havent even broke a dollar as far as raises. Micro-management, Micro-management. You work your ass off just to keep your job. They will suck the life out of your ability to care for grieving families. STAY AWAY!”

“I worked for this Hell Hole for 6 months.....IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY....NOT THE FAMILIES!”

“I also worked for this company. When Alderwood was bought out by SCI I thought all of these big box companies were alike. I found out how wrong I was. The families were served no longer mattered. I was expected to put in as many hours as it took to do my job, with not compensation for the overtime, and once worked 2 1/2 months without a day off. As the only director/embalmer at my location, I was responsible for every aspect of the funeral from first call to burial alone. I wasn't even allowed to hire out the night time removals and was accused by my market manager of being too lazy to get out of bed at 3 am to take a call. I don't care how much money they pay... I would never go back.”

These mostly anonymous posts may be viewed as biased or dishonest, but they are in line with the reputation of SCI that I have heard for the last 15 years. I would not suggest that all the claims made in Charles Walden’s open letter and advertising are false, but many of them are.

Given the personal experiences that I have had with SCI on behalf of my family and others, it is difficult for me to accept that SCI provides “world-class services” or offers “the best value.” Without question, the Dignity Memorial® network has not served “the Georgetown Community for 100 years” as claimed in Charles Walden’s advertisement for SCI.

I am sorry to see Charles Walden allowing himself to be used in such a dishonest way. The only time I recall having contact with him, he was courteous and forthright. He used to have a reputation that such corporate puffery belies.

Local families who need to plan a funeral would be wise to ignore SCI’s self-promotion and shop around. There are many good and fair-priced funeral services available in the Austin area. Cost comparisons are made simple by the annual survey of funeral costs published by AMBIS -- the nonprofit Funeral Consumers Alliance affiliate serving central Texas. The 2011 survey can be found online here.

Be sure to read both the narrative and the chart to understand what services are being described.

For example:

• While some SCI funeral homes charge as much as $2800 for Direct Cremation, that identical service is available for as little as $775 by another funeral home. From personal experience, I can say the lower-cost funeral home gives just as high a quality of service as the most expensive SCI funeral home.


• For a full-service “traditional” funeral, a family can pay some SCI funeral homes as much as $10,860, while several other funeral homes charge $2,000 to $6,000 less for the same thing.


• Four SCI funeral homes charge $4,295 for their basic service fee (making arrangements, coordinating with others, and covering overhead costs), while some competitors charge as little as $525 for that service . Likewise, some SCI funeral homes charge $1,395 for embalming (an optional service, not required by law), while others charge as little as $425.

Families have a choice in the Austin area market. With a little research, anyone can find reasonably-priced alternatives to price-gouging. While funeral shopping at a time of grief is no fun, it can be less onerous if you know where to look for information and advice. It’s even better to make these decisions and compare costs ahead of time.

But it is seldom necessary to pay ahead of time. You can set aside funeral funds in a pay-on-death account that names a recipient who will use the money for your funeral upon your death, or you can name a beneficiary of other investments who can use the proceeds for funeral arrangements. You can beat the high cost of dying if you choose to do so.

• Also see Lamar W. Hankins : A Grave Injustice in Groves, Texas / The Rag Blog / May 4, 2011.

[Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, city attorney, is also a columnist for the San Marcos Mercury. This article © Freethought San Marcos, Lamar W. Hankins. Read more articles by Lamar W. Hankins on The Rag Blog.]

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Lamar W. Hankins : A Grave Injustice in Groves, Texas

Graveside greed: Service Corporation International's Greenlawn Memorial Park in Groves, Texas
Grave injustice:
The rapacious ways of
Service Corporation International

By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog / May 4, 2011

For the second time since 2000, I have encountered the unrelenting greed of Service Corporation International (SCI). In 1960, my parents, Herman and Arthur Mae “Smitty” Hankins, bought four plots in Greenlawn Memorial Park, a cemetery located in Groves, Texas, adjacent to Port Arthur, where I grew up. Around 1998, SCI acquired the cemetery from the family that had owned it for 100 years.

In 2000, after the death of my younger brother, his cremated remains were buried in one of the plots with the approval of Paul Pond, cemetery manager, and Craig McGee, the Area Manager for SCI at that time. Their approval came only after a prolonged negotiation made necessary by the desire of SCI to extract the most money possible out of every opportunity, often by relying on its own policies.

Most cemeteries, especially corporate ones, reserve the right to change their policies -- as reflected in their rules and regulations -- at any time. When they do so, the changes often cost families more money and thereby enhance the profits of the corporation.

My brother’s cremated remains were encased in a tube made of PVC pipe sealed on both ends with PVC end caps. My family and some friends held a family-planned and family-directed graveside service, during which my father, an uncle, a cousin, and I took turns digging an appropriate-sized hole with a post hole digger, then lowered the capsule into the hole with a specially-designed bag that I fashioned out of macrame materials that my brother had used to make craft items.

My mother and father (as well as the rest of the family) found the graveside service meaningful and advantageous to them in dealing with their grief. The participation by several family members in the service gave it meaning that it would not have had with the involvement of funeral or cemetery professionals.

My mother and father have now died. When I was in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area on February 25, preparing for my father’s memorial service at Wildwood-Village Mills United Methodist Church held the next day, my wife and I visited with John Davis at Greenlawn to explain that I wanted to make preparations for a similar service for the interment of the cremated remains of both my parents, which are contained together in a container similar to the one I made for my brother’s cremated remains.

John Davis’s initial reaction was that my family’s wishes could not be fulfilled, but he agreed to talk with his supervisor about the matter and call me back within the hour and to provide information, as well, about the cost of a monument for my parents’ gravesite.

When I received no call back from him for four days, I called to find out why I had not received the information I had requested about the service and the cost of a monument for my parents.

I was unable to reach him and got the name of his supervisor, Mark Root. He and I talked by telephone on March 2nd. Root told me that in order to bury my parents’ cremated remains together, I would have to pay a second interment fee because this was required by the Texas Department of Banking, a statement I knew was false, and I told him so.

In addition, Root told me that the Department of Banking does not permit interment of cremated remains in a PVC container, nor do SCI rules. The latter statement I agreed with, but I knew the statement about the PVC pipe and the Banking Department was false. I told Root that I was going to contact the Department of Banking about his statements, which I did right after our discussion.

I called Russell Reese at the Department of Banking, the Director of Special Audits for Prepaid Funeral Contracts and Perpetual Care Cemeteries, and relayed the conversation with Mark Root. Mr. Reese said he would immediately call Mark Root to correct his misrepresentations of Banking Department regulations.

In addition to charging an extra interment fee, SCI required that my family buy an urn vault, an outer burial container made of polystyrene or some similar material, and they wanted to charge me to dig a hole in which the urn vault would fit, an “opening and closing fee” as it is called. Together, all charges would be $3,760, in addition to the cost of the granite marker. All of these charges were based on rules that did not exist when my parents bought the plots.

I have been a funeral consumer advocate for the past 18 years on behalf of the Austin Memorial and Burial Information Society, the Funeral Consumers Alliance (FCA) (which I served as a board member for nearly eight years, four of which were as president), and the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Texas.

During my service as president of the FCA Board, I testified at a hearing held by the U.S. Senate’s Special Committee on Aging that was investigating fraud in the preneed funeral and cemetery business. Over the years, I have worked closely with the Texas Funeral Service Commission and the Banking Department on issues of common concern, so I am not completely ignorant about funeral and cemetery regulations.

The false representations made to me by Mark Root leave me wondering how many misrepresentations, distortions of federal and state regulations, and outright lies are told by cemetery personnel to families who are not as knowledgeable about such matters as I am when they go to SCI to make arrangements for the interment of their family members.

I would like to resolve the needs and preferences of my family amicably with SCI, but the inexcusable deceit, hostility, and evasion that I have encountered to simple requests that create no liability or demands on its cemetery or its corporation lead me to believe that SCI’s greed is the only force that drives its corporate policies and the behavior of its employees.

On March 10, I spoke by telephone with Scott Leffler, another SCI official, about this matter. He was unwilling to give permission for my family to follow their traditions and wishes regarding the interment of my parents’ cremated remains, though he did say that he would speak to Mr. Root about his false statements that I have reported.

On March 10, 2011, I wrote to Jim Kriegshauser, Managing Director for Funeral and Cemetery Services for SCI’s region that includes both the Austin area and the Beaumont-Port Arthur area. His office is in Spicewood, Texas, located between Marble Falls and Austin. I told him in the letter that I would like to discuss these matters with him. To date, he has not replied.

My parents never imagined 50 years ago that their thoughtful advance planning and payment for four gravesites would one day lead to their oldest son’s being forced to deal with a corporation as avaricious, insensitive, indifferent, and callous to the needs of families as is SCI.

This is a corporation, headquartered in Houston, that spends tens of thousands of dollars each year to ensure that the Texas Legislature does nothing to prevent its continuing exploitation of Texas families. Everyone should be aware that if they choose to do business with SCI, they will be contributing to SCI’s abuse of families everywhere.

[Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, city attorney, is also a columnist for the San Marcos Mercury. This article © Freethought San Marcos, Lamar W. Hankins. Read more articles by Lamar W. Hankins on The Rag Blog.]

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