Bad Funeral Business Tactics

The Sad Truth about Many Mortuary Owners

When someone you love dies, the last thing you want to do is invest hours trying to figure out how much the funeral home is going to charge. Your first priorities are how to handle their remains and celebrate their life. Unfortunately, many funeral homes are cagey about prices and offerings. Capturing your business before honestly disclosing their fees, these unscrupulous vendors rely on a dishonest business model to fill coffins and coffers.

Bad Funeral Business Practices Common

A recent article posted on National Public Radio (NPR) revealed the fact that the funeral industry has been consciously nontransparent since at least the 19th century. This was when the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) prohibited members from advertising in the newspaper. The same post asserts that, as recently as the 1960s, the association barred members from advertising their prices. They finally agred to end the ban in 1968, after being sued by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Unfortunately, the culture of secrecy persists, with a strategic ambiguity about prices part and parcel of the death care industry. 

FTC Addresses Bad Funeral Business Practices

The Federal Trade Commission sought to fix the disturbing lack of price transparency. They also reined in a variety of other abusive and anti-consumer practices occurring in the industry in 1984, with The Funeral Rule. This rule requires that funeral businesses give consumers an itemized price list when they talk to them in person. What’s more, they must give clear price information when asked for it over the phone. The itemized list, known as the “general price list,” helps consumers pick and choose what they want and don’t want.

 FTC Funeral Rules

1. Buy only the funeral arrangements you want.
2. Get price information on the telephone.
3. Get a written, itemized price list when you visit a funeral home.
4. See a written casket price list before you see the actual caskets.
5. See a written outer burial container price list.
6. Receive a written statement after you decide what you want, and before you pay.
7. Get an explanation in the written statement from the funeral home that describes any legal cemetery or crematory requirement
8. Use an “alternative container” instead of a casket for cremation.
9. Provide the funeral home with a casket or urn you buy elsewhere.
10. Make funeral arrangements without embalming.
    

    Funeral Prices should be transparent.

Lack of Transparency = Bad Business

Despite these rules, in recent years, federal regulators shopping undercover have found that about one in four funeral homes fail to disclose price information. This despite the associated risk of large fines from the federal government for non-compliance. Now is the time to follow the rules and also bring disclosure requirements into the age of mobile platforms, searchable data and social media. Price lists should be online.

Foothill Funeral & Cremation (FFC), posts our products, services and prices online. Not only that, but we also publish our competitors’ price lists, for full transparency. We do this because we have witnessed bad business tactics by our competitors and want to make sure that we operate with integrity. Working with people during a very vulnerable, we realize the process can be difficult. So, we aim to make the process as pain free as possible.

Choose a mortuary that values their clients.

Centrally located at 402 West Baseline in Glendora, Foothill Funeral & Cremation proudly serves the San Gabriel Valley, San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles Basin, Orange County and the Inland Empire. With years of experience in the mortuary industry, we have worked hard to build our reputation. We value quality, sincerity and trust. We would be honored to help you at your time of need or in the future. Call today (626) 335-0615 or drop by our showroom.