The Federal Trade Commission’s first-ever undercover Funeral Rule phone sweep found several funeral providers are not giving out pricing information to customers as required by law, according to a new report.
The federal rule requires funeral companies to give accurate information about their offerings and pricing over the phone when customers ask.
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FTC staff randomly selected 278 funeral providers in the U.S.‘s largest, middle and smallest metropolitan areas from February 2023 to December 2023.
The staff members made up to three attempts to contact each provider by phone during business hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) and up to three times outside of business hours, the FTC said. They asked the funeral providers for pricing information, typically for direct cremation; cremation and a memorial service; and cremation and a viewing.
FTC staff were unable to obtain pricing information from 73 (26%) of all providers called after business hours. According to the report, they were also unable to get that price information from 21 providers (7%) during regular business hours.
The FTC said, many times, multiple calls were needed to get price information from a funeral provider. Staff members either called more than once or waited for a return call from nearly 70% of the businesses they called during the phone sweep after hours.
During business hours, staff members called multiple times or waited for a return call for about 30% of providers.
Overall, the report details that half the funeral businesses called answered at least some questions about pricing with estimates or ranges and not the actual prices.
“Certain funeral providers gave price information that failed to provide the specificity, completeness, or accuracy of information generally required in a General Price List,” the report said.
The FTC noted that at least 33% of funeral homes gave package pricing for one service on a call without giving itemized price information for that service. And at least 37 providers quoted different prices for the same services on different calls, the FTC report said.
See the full FTC report below:
