Mortuaries Find Profit in Confusion
Original version published in the Washington Post, August 26, 2001
Buying a car is fun. You look at the price, bargain with the sales representative or go elsewhere. Buying a funeral, however, can be a nightmare. You can spend thousands of dollars without understanding why. And who wants to comparison shop or haggle after the loss of a loved one?
The Maryland chapter of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, an industry watchdog group, recently completed its annual mortuary price survey. What our sampling of 32 mortuaries uncovered was chilling.
For starters, the so-called “nondeclinable fee” is not user friendly.
This fee, usually the first item on the General Price List (GPL), covers “basic staff services and overhead.” It was never meant to be large. But today it is likely to be at least $1,000 and must be paid regardless of whatever items or services the consumer selects from the GPL.
Thus, someone arranging for a modest service with a handful of mourners still must contribute to a mortuary’s overhead, say, for repaving the extra parking lot used for big funerals.
According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a mortuary’s GPL must adhere to certain guidelines so that consumers are able to purchase only what they want. But our survey found that consumers sometimes weren’t made aware of all the options the FTC requires mortuaries to disclose—for example, the right to provide your own casket for an immediate burial . And even when such options were listed, illegal handling fees sometimes were added. The GPL’s of some mortuaries we surveyed seemed more like multiple-choice exams than simple fee disclosures. As a former car salesman explains, “There is profit in confusion.”
The heading “direct cremation,” for instance, sometimes did not include the charge for the cremation—usually about $175. How is it possible to charge hundreds of dollars for a direct cremation, including paperwork and transfer of the body to the crematory, without mentioning the charge for the cremation itself?
Not all of this is illegal, just misleading. With the sanctity and religiosity that surround death, it also seems unethical for morticians to manipulate and exploit vulnerable people.
Life is fatal for all of us. The least we can ask for are mortuary price lists that make sense and adhere to the law.
--Nancy J. Herin is president of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Maryland and Environs