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ICFA Responds to 'Cemetery Trap' Article
Editor's note: The following letter sent to Consumers Digest was also circulated to key members of Congress and Federal Trade Commission staff.
Consumers Digest
To the Editor:
It was disappointing to find the May/June issue of Consumers Digest disparaging cemeteries ("Avoiding the Cemetery Trap") while admitting it could find little evidence of wrongdoing firsthand. Writer John F. Wasik's promise of "an in-depth investigation" of the nation's 100,000 cemeteries to uncover "widespread abuses" relating to prices was misleading. Wasik later admitted "... we found no problem in obtaining prices on cemetery land and services across the country" and distanced himself from the claims of industry critics by stating, "This sampling of complaints is by no means a national, scientific survey of burial costs in the United States" and "...we had no way of independently verifying what is happening in every state." Then why all the cemetery bashing?
Perhaps it's because the article was primarily based on interviews with industry critics, thereby providing readers with a myopic viewpoint. Notably absent from the "investigation" are comments from cemetery owners and managers with the not-too-surprising results that the article repeats long-discredited fallacies and provides its readers with some bad advice.
For example, readers are told, "Don't sign a contract that's irrevocable," but the article fails to point out that they may be found ineligible to receive Medicaid or Supplemental Security Income benefits if the cemetery contract is not irrevocable. Another classic piece of bad advice is, "You can save up for funeral and burial costs yourself by setting money aside in a federally insured savings account in a local bank." That sounds reasonable until you meet consumers who had to use those funds to pay medical bills and had nothing left for the funeral and burial. The U.S. government has found that people don't even save for their retirement.
More myopia: The article complains that cemeteries charge higher rates for grave opening and closing after business hours and on weekends but fails to add that cemeteries must also pay overtime wages to the employees performing the work. This is especially true with unionized workers. Is Consumers Digest anti-union or does it believe that employees should work unpaid overtime?
The fallacies continue: Discussing the Federal Trade Commission's review of its Funeral Rule, the article states, "We searched through FTC public comments ... of several hundred letters and comments posted." Yet as anyone can see on the FTC website at www.ftc.gov, they received a total of 153 letters and comments, a portion of which dealt with cemetery issues. So where do the "several hundred" letters come from?
Another fallacy: "Few families even know where to complain." Let's get real: everybody knows to complain to the Better Business Bureau if nowhere else. The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, checked with the BBB to determine the number of cemetery complaints it received. According a 1999 GAO investigation, the BBB reported a total of 453 funeral-related complaints for 1997, the latest year that numbers were available, and found that only three complaints were cemetery-related. This type of data is ignored.
The article prefers going for the cheap shot, e.g., "There's more regulation of dog vaccinations," rather than in providing an objective look at consumer protection. For example, the article infers that because cemeteries are generally not required by law to disclose prices (actually not true in some states), cemeteries, therefore, do not. Yet, as mentioned earlier, Consumers Digest admits that it had no problem obtaining price information from cemeteries wherever it went. The article complains about the lack of competition and then naively cites New York and Wisconsin as states with "meaningful regulations." In fact, the cemetery laws in both these states limit the number of sellers of funeral merchandise, thereby restricting consumer choices and driving prices higher than if open competition were encouraged.
The article is badly informed, complaining that "you can't hire your own gravedigger." Hiring your own gravedigger sounds like a good idea to save money until you're on the receiving end. That's when the owners of the grave next to your family grave site decide to hire some Tom, Dick or Harry and jeopardize the integrity of your burials. With the realization that your family's monument, vault, casket or the remains themselves could be violated by the mishandled opening of an adjacent grave site, most people will decide that it is wiser to make the cemetery solely responsible for this function.
The article repeats the fiction that nonprofit cemeteries will charge less than for-profit cemeteries, thereby encouraging consumers to short-circuit the importance of comparison shopping. It does not question a critic's advice that people "may be better off in a municipal [or other nonprofit] cemetery." Really? The fact is that the rising costs of operating and properly maintaining cemeteries is forcing a number of municipalities to privatize or otherwise divest their cemeteries. Most municipal cemeteries are not revenue-neutral operations for local governments and, in times of budget constraints, these cemeteries are often the first governmental activities to face funding cuts. Sometimes there is a need to raise local taxes to keep a cemetery properly maintained, a no-win situation for elected officials.
Regarding the need for vaults and grave liners, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs now authorizes the use of such outer burial containers in its national cemeteries but Consumers Digest criticizes private cemeteries for requiring the same thing. The article contains little discussion of the reasons why grave liners or vaults are needed and, again, chooses to rely upon industry critics to explore the issue.
Overall, the article provides a confused view of the organizational structure for cemeteries, wrongly assuming that the public is better served when cemeteries are operated as charities or as a government service. Reality draws a different conclusion. However, taking the lead of its "sources," all installation, administrative and maintenance fees charged are presumed illegal, or at least unethical. In fact, the article seems unable to independently verify the more outrageous claims, a task not difficult to do. For example, one critic claimed she received at least 1,000 complaints annually alleging pricing abuses. However, this particular critic's comments filed with the Federal Trade Commission just last year produced no such volume of pricing complaints. In checking the FTC files, did Consumers Digest think to critique the critics?
Considering that about 5,500 funerals and burials take place each day in the United States, "Avoiding the Cemetery Trap" serves only to malign thousands of hardworking, honest men and women in this profession while persuading readers that the only "trap" they should avoid is even thinking about making burial arrangements before need. If your publication genuinely seeks to help consumers, why not refer them to sources where people will obtain straightforward answers to their questions. For starters, try this Association's "Consumer Resource" pages on the internet at www.icfa.org. No salesman will call.
Very truly yours,
Robert M. Fells
COO, External Affairs
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