|
ICFA Responds to
Funeral Consumers Alliance Letter
On February 11, 2004, the ICFA sent a 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 the following rebuttal:
Mr. Joshua Slocum
Executive Director
Funeral Consumer Alliance
33 Patchen Road
South Burlington, VT 05403
Dear Mr. Slocum:
We have received your letter, dated February 19, 2004, which was written in response to ours, dated February 11, 2004, to Mr. Moonves, CBS Television Network. We agree that television news reporting lacks nuance but your letter provides a good example of the ICFA's ongoing concerns over how consumer protection issues are mischaracterized.
The main thrust of your letter takes issue with our reporting on the relatively low number of funeral-related consumer complaints received by the Federal Trade Commission during the 29-month period between 2001 and 2003. We do not claim or imply that the number constitutes the entire universe of consumer complaints in the United States. However, instead of providing additional statistical data, you indulge in sheer speculation, to quote: "Assume each of these 19 funeral homes performed a conservative 50 services in 2003, and that each customer was given the same General Price List we collected for our survey. By my calculations, this results in 950 potential consumer complaints - almost double the number ICFA found in the Federal Trade Commission's nationwide files." Well, Mr. Slocum, as long as you're just speculating, why stop at 950? Why not make it 9,950? You see my point: the ICFA is attempting to quantify documented complaints from a federal agency while you rely on your imagination for the data.
Like yourself, we receive daily phone calls and correspondence from consumers with inquiries and complaints through our volunteer complaint-resolution arm, the Cemetery Consumer Service Council. However, at the end of each year we tally up our data and circulate it to federal agencies, state consumer protection offices, the Better Business Bureaus, and the media. Through industry volunteers, not only from the ICFA but from other trade associations as well, we are able to resolve many of these problems. In fact, the only complaints where we cannot assist are the ones we don't hear about. As a result, we would welcome a cooperative effort with FCA to assist with consumer complaints that you are receiving.
The wisdom of prefunding is very much a sore point with your organization and we definitely would want to pursue this issue if you are so inclined. The ICFA has consistently cautioned that prepayment is not for everybody, but in this country where many people don't even save for their retirement years, is it wise to assume that people will save for their funerals? Even the FTC encourages consumers to purchase the cemetery property of their choice well in advance of need. However, the blanket condemnation of prefunding is a disservice to consumers who wish to prudently plan for their final expenses.
Another aspect of your letter concerns "the tangle of confusing and unfair preneed statutes existing among the 50 states" and that many consumers seem unaware of the FTC Funeral Rule and state regulatory protections. You ask, "How else can we explain the dearth of complaints to the FTC...?" One plausible explanation was provided recently by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress. In September 2003, the GAO published a report on state funeral and burial laws observing, "It must be noted that a low number of enforcement actions taken by a state may not be indicative of lax enforcement efforts, but rather could be reflective of a general lack of problems involving the death care industry in that state." The point is that we need more documentation, not "the sky is falling" speculation.
It is regrettable that you chose to end your letter by making inflammatory accusations that ICFA "continues to ignore, obfuscate, and rationalize away the troubles plaguing the funeral transaction. This reflects very poorly indeed on its members and constituency." You are evidently unaware that since 1998 the ICFA has published a series of Model Guidelines for State Laws and Regulations, which currently number twenty-eight. These guidelines cover such topics as prepaid contract trust funds, insurance-funded prearrangements, authorization to control final disposition, handling of remains in conjunction with the cremation process, solicitation, consumer guarantee funds, and written price disclosures prior to purchasing, among many others. We provided a copy of the guidelines to your predecessor, Mrs. Carlson, and we assume it remains the property of FCA. We were also contacted by one of your board members who wished to purchase a copy of the Model Guidelines but we provided this material without charge as a professional courtesy. It is interesting to note that Senator Chris Dodd and Representative Mark Foley incorporated much of the language of our model guideline on prepaid contract disclosures in the legislation they introduced into Congress in November 2002. Contrary to your assertions, we believe the Model Guidelines for State Laws and Regulations reflect very responsibly on ICFA's members and constituency.
The ICFA does not fear new laws, but we are very concerned with bad laws, especially "laws by anecdote." These are proposals made in response to isolated events that serve neither consumers nor the industry. We seem to share a mutual concern that some states require stronger laws and better enforcement, two goals that led to the creation of the ICFA model guidelines project in the first place. We also want to see more uniformity among state laws, but the mere fact that laws differ from state to state is not in itself necessarily a "red flag," a point made in the GAO report.
In closing, if your letter was meant to initiate a dialogue between our two organizations, then we welcome the opportunity to meet with you and discuss issues of mutual concern, paramount among which is consumer education.
Very truly yours,
Robert M. Fells
External Chief Operating Officer
and General Counsel
cc:
Leslie Moonves, Chairman, President and CEO, CBS
The Honorable Christopher J. Dodd, U.S. Senator
The Honorable Mark Foley, U.S. Representative
Carole Danielson, Funeral Rule Coordinator, Federal Trade Commission
Allen Hile, Division of Marketing Practices, Federal Trade Commission
Christine Pepper, CEO, National Funeral Directors Association
Sue Simon, Editor, Funeral Monitor
Ron Hast, Editor and Publisher, Mortuary Management
Doug Hernan, Editor and Publisher, Funeral Service Insider
Edward J. Defort, Editor, American Funeral Director
Jim Miller, Editor and Publisher, Savvy Senior
*********************************************************************************************
|
