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By 1978 two components of the rule had already been dropped: the requirement to display the cheapest caskets with the others, and the prohibition against trying to influence the buyer in his choice of funeral.
Plus ça change
Pumphrey Funeral Home General Price List Basic services of funeral director and staff $1,525 Transfer of remains to the funeral home $ 255 Embalming, or $ 370 No embalming, refrigeration $ 375
Dressing, cosmetics, casketing $ 215 Use of facilities for Viewing, per day $ 290 Use of facilities for Funeral Ceremony
Hearse $ 235 Flower Car $ 85 Sedan $ 115 Limo $ 120 Total for services and...
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www.funerals.org/famsa/frop.htm.
“Consumers rarely comparison shop due to the infrequency of purchase, which averages once in every 14 years.
800-9CARING,
An open-casket funeral is almost unheard of, said Mr. Ashton. Such a thing would be considered so absolutely weird, so contrary to good taste and proper
behavior, so shocking to the sensibilities of all concerned, that he thinks it could never become a practice in England.
It’s the ultimate commercialisation—the final tastelessness. McDeath
its way to a funeral parlour near you.
Scatter me not to restless winds Nor toss my ashes to the sea. Remember now those years gone by When living gifts I gave to thee. Remember now the happy times,
The family ties we shared; Don’t leave my resting place unmarked, As though you never cared. Deny me not one final gift For all who come to see,
A single lasting proof that says I loved, an...
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Immediate service follow-up is based on the somewhat harsh premise that you’ve got to get ’em before the tears are dry.
“Freezing the cost tells them why, but emotion makes them buy.”
“We sold set packages—a major rip-off.
We were not allowed to offer cheap funerals unless we had permission.
often crops up in lawyers’ talk, known as the “man of ordinary prudence.” He is a person of common sense, able to look at transactions with a normal degree of sophistication, to put a reasonable interpretation on evidence, to apply rational standards to all sorts of situations. He has, down the ages, often given the undertakers trouble; but never, it would seem, so much trouble as he is giving them in America today. He is, in fact, their worst enemy.
He thinks showy funerals are in bad taste and are a waste of money.
He thinks some undertakers take advantage
of the grief-stricken for fin...
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He thinks the poor and uneducated are especially vulnerable to this form of exploitation when ...
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An atomic attack on our Christian funeral customs … … hang over our heads like the fabled sword of Damocles.
It poses a threat to religion itself.
If you do none of these things … the final journey will probably be the most expensive ride you’ve ever taken.”
The promulgations of these outfits hint at Communism and its brother-in-arms, atheism.
Although presently the focal point of their attack is funeral service, the philosophy of the movement is that current American funeral, burial and memorialization practices are largely pagan
and wasteful; that they should be greatly simplified; and that regardless of a family’s wealth and social position, only modest expenditures should be made for such purposes.
St. Leo Shop in Newport, Rhode Island:
Covered with cushions, it doubles as a storage chest and low seat, until needed for its ultimate purpose.”
We learned of two burial committees connected with Friends Meetings, one in Ohio, the other in Burnsville, North Carolina. When a member dies, the committee supplies a plain plywood box, places the body in it, and delivers it by
station wagon to the crematory or medical school. The next of kin pays for the cost of the lumber in the box plus crematory charges and obituary notices. There is no charge for the committee’s services, which include making the box.
The total expense is generally under $250. The committee arranges for “help with the children or with food, a lift with the housework, hospitality for visiting relatives—a r...
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FTC Funeral Rule was passed in 1984, publicity
Lisa Carlson’s Caring for Your Own Dead—a state-by-state manual for those living
“It always pays to plan ahead. It rarely pays to pay ahead.”
9,288 full-time funeral homes. Yet there are more than 22,000 mortuaries in this country. Many get only one or two funerals a week.”
Constructive delivery is in reality no delivery, and it is the rare consumer who
will have the wit to even try to ascertain whether or where the prepaid goods are being stored, let alone have the persistence to demand a glimpse of the items he or she presumably owns.
The cemetery owners generally have unrestricted access, which accounts for the scandalously high incidence of misappropriation of endowment care funds.
Insurance policies generate a relatively low rate of appreciation. The seller gets a commission, and the insurance company
pays itself to invest the funds. “Insurance-funded
funded preneed arrangements are the fastest growing preneed pro...
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If every mortuary in the country offered fair prices and a wide range of options, did not indulge in manipulation of the grieving, did not hide the low-cost caskets, did not dominate the
funeral boards with self-serving regulations, did not limit the options for caring for your own dead in certain states or who can sell caskets, there would be no reason for our societies.
Funeral Rule.
Who are these meddlesome do-gooders willing to take on a well-heeled
and powerful industry? “Unitarians, Quakers, eggheads, and old farts who are nothing more than a middleman for the industry and a cheap funeral,” was one glib characterization.
