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ICFA Responds to CBS News Reports
On February 11, 2004, the ICFA sent the following letter to CBS in response to a "CBS Evening News" report on February 10 and 'The Early Show' broadcast on February 11.
On February 19, Funeral Consumers Alliance Executive Director Joshua Slocum responded to the ICFA's letter, and on February 25, the ICFA replied to Mr. Slocum with a rebuttal.
Mr. Leslie Moonves
Chairman, President and CEO
The CBS Television Network
51 W. 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019
Re: 2/10 CBS Evening News Broadcast,
"When Death Knocks, Bereaved Beware"
Dear Mr. Moonves:
The Tuesday, February 10th broadcast of CBS Evening News with Dan Rather contained a segment warning your viewers about funeral scams, especially the preservative claims of so-called "sealer caskets." We agree that if there is one thing all consumers should remember in making funeral arrangements, it would be that human remains cannot be preserved for any extended length of time. A "red flag" should immediately be raised when any seller claims to have a product or service that will preserve human remains over the long term. However, CBS represented as "news" the experience of a consumer, Barbara Osborne, who had already persuasively testified to her experience almost two years ago before a U.S. Senate subcommittee in April 2002. While the passage of time does not make her experience any less heartbreaking, it does remain a singular event that CBS News failed to place into any context such as the fact that there are over 5,000 funerals and burials in the United States each day.
Indeed, the segment's opening claim that "there are many horror stories" in the funeral industry suggests that fairness was not a priority in the report, so let's look at the record. Consumers have filed almost 550 complaints with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against funeral-related businesses during a 29 month period between 2001 and 2003 for an average of about 19 complaints per month compared to about 167,000 funerals per month. This results in the statistically negligible complaint rate of one-hundredth of one percent. Regardless, funeral-related complaints are emotional in nature and we do not trivialize them. It is significant to note that none of the FTC complaints involved "sealer caskets."1 Many complaints dealt with the failure of funeral homes to provide written price lists, an issue that the CBS News segment dramatically illustrated by use of an undercover camera at three Washington, D.C. area funeral homes. Ironically, the national headquarters of the FTC that enforces the price disclosure requirements of the Funeral Rule is located on Constitution Avenue, probably not more than a mile or two from these funeral homes. CBS is no doubt aware of this proximity, which leads to an interesting question: Is CBS News concerned with helping consumers or just frightening them?
A related report on this morning's The Early Show featured a consumer advocate urging consumers to shop in advance of need, to obtain a copy of the price list upon entering a funeral home, to leave if they don't get one, and to bring along a friend who may be less emotionally involved in the transaction. We concur with this advice but were disappointed when the advocate repeated the flawed "wisdom" about preplanning "but not prepaying." Similar to all consumer purchases, prepaying for a funeral well before it is needed has advantages and risks that can be evaluated prior to payment. We believe it is more helpful to warn that prefunding is not for everyone, but telling consumers never to prepay and to instead save for their funeral expenses on their own can be the most hazardous plan of all.
The overwhelming majority of prepaid funerals are performed as intended, and many have price guarantees that are written into the contract. These funds are also protected from creditors of both the consumer and of the funeral home. Prepayment is recommended when consumers must "spend down" their assets to qualify for government assistance. However, funds privately saved by consumers in bank accounts or certificates of deposits are not generally shielded from creditors' claims. The loss of these funds prior to the funeral most commonly occurs due to the expenses of the final illness including services not covered by insurance or by insurance co-pay obligations. To the best of our knowledge, nobody can advise consumers on how to pay for a funeral after their savings have been depleted. Prepayment can and does work.
Finally, there are an increasing number of funeral and burial information resources for consumers to consult that are easily accessible through the Internet. We urge consumers to check several different web sites to neutralize the "private agendas" common to many sites both from the industry and its critics. Among the sites, we urge consumers to visit our association's Consumer Resources section at www.icfa.org that we believe offers the most comprehensive information of all in a user-friendly Question-and-Answer format. Best of all, no salesman will call.
Very truly yours,
Robert M. Fells
External Chief Operating Officer
and General Counsel
1 Two casket retailers questioned whether the term "sealer casket" is prohibited by law, but there were no consumer complaints involving the product.
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