The American Way of Death Revisited - Jessica Mitford [110]
First comes the FTC-required statement, “The goods and services shown below are those we can provide to our customers. You may choose only the items you desire. However, any funeral arrangements you select will include a charge for our basic services and overhead.”
The crunch is in that “however.” It means that whether or not you “choose” or “desire” any of the listed “basic services,” you will have to pay for all of them willy-nilly. And here they are, set forth in bold type: “MINIMUM SERVICES OF THE FUNERAL DIRECTOR AND STAFF. This fee for our basic services and overhead will be added to the total cost of the funeral arrangements you select.”
“Personnel available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to respond to initial call.” That is, somebody will answer the phone, most likely an office worker trained for the purpose and stationed at the central clustering point.
“Arrangement Conference.” Mortuary-speak for clinching the sale.
“Coordinating service plans with cemetery, crematory, and/or other parties involved in the final disposition of the deceased.” This would be akin to what your travel agent does when she arranges your schedule involving plane, rental car, hotel, etc.
“Securing and recording the death certificate and disposition permit.” The doctor or coroner supplies the death certificate. The non-medical death-certificate information must be supplied by the family. Permit-for-disposition forms are simple and routine, and are often signed by the morticians themselves, then dropped in the mail.
“Clerical assistance in the completion of various forms associated with a funeral.” These forms are needed to apply for monies due from insurance policies, Social Security, Veterans Administration, trade union death benefits, and the like. The principal information needed? Name, address, Social Security number, date and place of death.
“Also covers overhead, such as facility maintenance, equipment and inventory costs, insurance and administrative expenses, and general governmental compliance.” Curiouser and curiouser. Here the buyer is assessed for everything from upkeep of the parking lot to dusting the office furniture, and, on top of that, under “government compliance” must pay for the funeral parlor to refrain from breaking the law.
Most of these “services” could be performed by the deceased’s family and would, in any event, take up a minimal amount of funeral home staff time. This is a prime example of the Federal Trade Commission’s craven capitulation to industry lobbyists.
What the FTC now calls a “minimum service charge” or “non-declinable” fee is known in the trade less elegantly as the “cover charge.” Although the chain-owned mortuaries are not the only ones guilty of abusing this fee, they are the most conspicuous:
Phoenix, Ariz. A. L. Moore & Sons, Inc. (SCI) $1,295
Phoenix, Ariz. Shadow Mountain Mortuary (SCI) $1,295
Sacramento, Calif. Harry A. Nauman & Son (SCI) $1,145
San Diego, Calif. Clairemont Mortuary (SCI) $1,145
Washington, D.C. Joseph Gawler’s Sons, Inc. (SCI) $1,870
Springfield, Mass. Byron’s (Loewen) $2,465
New York, N.Y. Frank E. Campbell (SCI) $1,395
Forest Park Westheimer Funeral Home in Houston, Texas, where SCI’s world headquarters are located, charges $1,682 for “Minimum Services” (or basic service fee), about average for the twenty SCI-owned homes in that city. Forest Park’s cheapest “traditional” funeral is $7,020. It includes a metal casket in a choice of three colors (the wholesale cost of which is under $400). Forest Park also boasts a cemetery, a mausoleum with additional crypts now under construction, and an innovation—“lawn crypts,” crypts beneath the sod. Thanks to the dogged determination of a live and feisty Marcia Carter, longtime resident of Houston who spent days unraveling Forest Lawn Westheimer prices, a fully developed picture emerges.
Marcia happens to