funeral-homes

Who's To Blame For Broken Urn: UPS Or The Crematorium?
When a California woman went to unpack the urn containing her late brother's ashes, she found it had been damaged in shipping and the ashes spilled onto her floor. The crematorium that sent the urn blames UPS, which points the finger right back at the crematorium, saying it violated UPS policy by shipping human remains. More »

Investigation Finds 15% Of Funeral Homes Still Misleading Consumers
Way back in 1984, the Federal Trade Commission established the Funeral Rule, which is actually a list of requirements for funeral homes to make sure that grieving consumers aren't hoodwinked into paying too much for services or paying for unnecessary items. Nearly 30 years on, an undercover investigation by the FTC found that a surprising number of funeral homes are not abiding by the Rule. More »

Police Arrest Embalmer For Swiping Gold Teeth From Remains
When you hand over the body of a loved one to a funeral parlor, you trust that the workers won't scour the remains for valuables to make a quick buck. But things apparently didn't work out that way in a Denver-area funeral home, where a freelance embalmer was indicted for swiping gold teeth from remains and pawning them. More »

Funeral Home Patrons Find 'Walking Dead' Billboard Offensive For Some Reason
Remarkably, no one at ClearChannel Advertising seems to have realized that it might be a bad idea to post a giant ad for a zombie-themed television program on the exterior wall of a funeral parlor. That's precisely what happened in the town of Consett in England. The advert for post-apocalyptic drama The Walking Dead has now been taken down, and the company responsible has apologized, but how on earth did this happen in the first place? More »

Save Money: Get Married In A Funeral Home
Superficially, weddings and funerals have a lot in common: everyone's dressed up, families get together, some people are crying, and the guests of honor ride off in fancy vehicle to an uncertain future. Funeral homes, though, are large and beautiful spaces that provide a cheaper alternative site for wedding receptions and/or ceremonies. More »

Funeral Home Director Accused Of Partying Pretty Hard
The Ohio state board that licenses funeral homes has shut down a business in the town of Findlay while it investigates a list of allegations against the funeral director who owns the business. It's a long list, too, including being naked or half-clothed during business hours, putting on the jacket of a deceased man in front of the man's family, threatening employees, and being drunk. More »

Bodies Found Stacked Like Firewood In Garage Of Maryland Funeral Home
Apparently the Chambers Funeral Home & Crematorium in Riverdale, Maryland had more bodies for its crematorium than it could handle, so it stored them in the garage—stacked in piles, with fluids leaking out. A state investigator discovered the stash during an inspection, although to be fair he was warned by an employee, "Don't get upset about all the bodies in there." More »

FTC Catches 30% Of Funeral Homes Violating Consumer Laws
Thanks to the Federal Trade Commission, consumers have certain rights when it comes to funerals. Consumers have the right to purchase only the products or services they need, to use the services of a funeral home while declining embalming, to see written price lists before they begin to make decisions, and the right to purchase a casket or urn elsewhere. An undercover FTC investigation, however, discovered that in 30% of the funeral homes they visited, at least one part of the Funeral Rule of 1984 was violated. More »

Lawsuit: Funeral Home Returns Mom's Brain With Personal Items
According to a lawsuit filed in New Mexico State District Court in Albuquerque, a woman's brain was returned to her family in a bag of personal effects. More »

Even In Death, You Can Still Shop At Walmart

—>Walmart now provides for their customers from cradle to grave. Quite literally—since you can not only purchase cribs there, you can now order caskets and funerary urns from the mega-retailer's Web site.  More »

Don't Let Dad Saw The Legs Off Corpses Or Your Funeral Home Might Get Shut Down

—>It's all well and good to let your father help out around the family funeral home, but if he doesn't have an embalming license—and is maybe too handy with an electric saw—keep him away from the important duties. A South Carolina funeral home just had its license revoked because four years ago the owner's father sawed the legs off a 6' 7" body to make it fit in the casket. The owner didn't tell the family at the time, and they only found out about it recently when an ex-employee told them. (See below for links to cool funk music—yes, it's related to this post!)  More »

National Funeral Home Lets Hundreds Of Corpses Rot In Hallways

—>The National Funeral Home in Falls Church, Virginia stores unrefrigerated corpses, including some bound for Arlington National Cemetery, in hallways and garages for months on end, according to embalmer-turned-whistleblower Steven Napper. The Funeral Home's owner, Texas-based Service Corporation International, told Napper that they were unwilling to pay for refrigeration, which would prevent corpses from leaking and growing mold.  More »

Save Money On A Funeral

—>Someone wrote to us this week that a person in his family is terminally ill, and that he was told "that the cost of the casket, funeral, viewing, and burial would possibly exceed 12,000 dollars." He thinks that's an "exorbitant amount of money," and so do we. There is no reason to pay that much money for a kick-ass funeral that people will be talking about for years to come. You don't need to be a cheapskate to manage this, either—you just need to be aware of your rights and know what traps to watch out for. Here's our list of what to do the next time you have to plan a funeral.  More »

Canadian Funeral Home Owner Busted For Cremains Fraud

—> The former owner of a funeral home in Princeton, British Columbia, has been charged with fraud for handing out random urns of ashes to his customers. The funeral home had been shut down in 2005 for operating without a license, but since it's rather difficult to spot the "wrong" ashes by sight, the problem wasn't discovered until another funeral home began to sort through the leftover inventory and found over 50 urns that had been labeled unclaimed.  More »