The American Way of Death Revisited - Jessica Mitford [102]
Unfortunately, we have only limited resources to take formal action against possible violators. Our actions are taken only on behalf of the general public and are designed to correct those violations which affect a significant number of consumers.
Plus ça change …
Further on enforcement, Mr. Wright told me that from 1984 to February 1995 there had been a total of thirty-eight cases “formally filed” against funeral directors; of those, only two had gone to trial. Fines imposed for violations range from $10,000 to $100,000; the average is about $30,000.
He estimated that it takes eight months to a year to finish a case. An average of a little over three cases a year for eleven years seemed very slim pickings. I asked Mr. Wright how the assignments for any given FTC project are handled—how much staff time would be allotted to enforcing the rule? Reverting to the bureaucratic idiom of his calling, he explained that the FTC employs some six hundred attorneys nationwide and three hundred economists; “about half of them will cover consumer protection measures. When you get down to enforcing the Funeral Rule, maybe two work years out of six hundred will be delegated to covering that particular rule,” but he was unable to estimate how much time he personally devoted to enforcing the Funeral Rule.
In 1990 the FTC, after a review by its Bureau of Economics Analysis, concluded—to no one’s surprise—that “the Rule has not contributed to a general reduction in the price of funerals.” By a subsequent series of capitulations to industry lobbyists, the agency has abandoned any pretense of consumer protection and has cleared the way for an era of unprecedented profitability.
In June 1994 the commission adopted an amendment to the rule to permit sellers to add their overhead to a nondeclinable fee, to cover a laundry list of items such as insurance, taxes, staff salaries, maintenance of common areas including the parking lot, and, not least, an unrestricted allowance for profit. The FTC thereby, in a single stroke, obliterated the import of itemization and the consumer’s right to choose established only a decade earlier. Package pricing, under the guise of the now FTC-endorsed nonnegotiable fee, has come back with a vengeance, and with it, for the funeral director, an exhilarating upward spiral of prices and profits.
The added fee is another device to enable the funeral seller to further confuse his already befuddled customer. In the bad old days—before there was any FTC rule and when package pricing was the norm—the consumer at least knew that the price of the casket was the cost of the entire funeral. Now, however, the standard general price list looks like this:
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 $ 315
Hearse $ 235
Flower Car $ 85
Sedan $ 115
Limo $ 120
Total for services and use of premises $3,375
To this must be added the cost of the casket—quoted by this mortuary in the $500 to $25,000 range—and the cost of the outside burial container or vault (required now by almost all cemeteries)—quoted range, $525 to $6,500.
The price list of the Pumphrey Funeral Home, Washington, D.C., is taken as an example because its prices fall within the middle range nationwide.
If the price of the cheapest steel casket—$2,000—is added, the funeral director’s bill comes to $5,375—exclusive of cemetery and outer container costs.
In the Houston, Texas, area, for example, the identical goods and services (cemetery and vault charges not included) can be had for as little as $1,585 or as much as $8,420.
The FTC makes no effort to ascertain whether funeral establishments are complying with the rule, Mr. Wright told me. However, in scattered parts of the country there are stalwart souls, mostly