An online and phone funeral obituary scam is preying on West Virginians in the throes of bereavement.
An online and phone funeral obituary scam is preying on West Virginians in the throes of bereavement.
West Virginia Board of Funeral Service Examiners President Gene Fahey has warned the state’s 500 or so funeral directors to alert families to the scam.
Fahey said the scammers begin by looking up obituary listings on funeral home websites. Then, using a staff name from that website, they google the next of kin and call them asking for money and credit card information before they can proceed with the funeral arrangements.
“When you make arrangements at a funeral home, many people have never done it in their life,” Fahey said. “Often, they’re not sure what the process is. But unless there is a person who is doing this from a distance, meaning that they are out of the country or out of town, and they’re trying to make some arrangements via the internet, most families meet with a funeral director in person.”
The targeted victims are surviving spouses or the elderly.
“They may have never gone through this process in their life and they’re extremely vulnerable,” Fahey said. “It’s really sickening that someone in this world would try to exploit their vulnerability.”
Fahey said at least two West Virginia families have received these scam calls with more happening in neighboring states.
“Fortunately, both of those West Virginia families immediately called the funeral home and reported what had happened,” Fahey said. “That gave us the heads up to make sure that we get the word out so that we can let families know that funeral homes are saying that this is a potential scam that’s going on. Please do not fall for it.”
Fahey said most funeral arrangements are made face to face at the funeral home.
“They discuss all the arrangements, they discuss different options, discuss the options for payment,” he said. “They never would call and demand payment without the family being aware that a call was going to be taking place. It would not happen in this profession.”
While most of us don’t want to talk about it, it is vitally important to make plans for final arrangements: for our aging parents and ourselves.
While most of us don’t want to talk about it, it is vitally important to make plans for your final arrangements.
For WVPB’s radio series “Getting Into Their Reality: Caring For Aging Parents,” News Director Eric Douglas spoke with Charleston Attorney Franki Parsons, from the law firm Ray, Winton & Kelley, about wills and estate planning and the problems that arise if you don’t have them when you die.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Douglas: Let’s talk about some of the legal issues when caring for aging parents, or for ourselves as well. Where do you want to start?
Parsons: To your point on the topic of aging parents, I have this conversation not just once a day, but multiple times a day. I’m 45 years old, most of my friends are about the same age group and we are in the sandwich generation. I do not have children, but a lot of people are caring for children and also parents who are declining and have a career. It is a lot to juggle. And this is a very timely topic that I feel will hit home with a lot of people.
Douglas: What’s the first step, I mean? Prior to parents declining physically, mentally, I assume you would say get all these papers in order, have those difficult conversations. So how do you get started?
Parsons: All of us, regardless of age, need two things. This is how I explain it to most clients. You need your life planning documents and your estate planning documents. Life planning documents are powers of attorney and Revocable Living Trusts. If you or I left here today and got into a car wreck and were in a coma, financial powers of attorney are very important because you need to have someone who can manage your financial affairs, access your accounts, manage your business affairs generally, if you’re not able to.
Charleston Attorney Franki Parsons from the firm Ray, Winton & Kelley. Courtesy
Douglas: When we go to the hospital, we’re checking in for surgery, they’ll give us a form for a medical power of attorney, but that’s not what you’re talking about.
Parsons: Equally important. Medical powers of attorney are also part of that life planning document set that I talked about. Medical powers of attorney – say if I cannot speak for myself – here is [the person] who may make decisions about my medical care. Also, in a lot of those documents, the ones we use at our law firm, contain a living power of attorney, or living will, I should say, as part of the medical power of attorney, and also directions for the disposition of your remains. You’d be surprised how many conflicts arise about what we do with the remains of an individual once they’ve passed on.
Douglas: Which is really not the time you wouldn’t want to be having that conversation.
Parsons: No. In older documents, you’ll often see that type of language put into a will. The problem is when we need to make the decision about what we’re going to do with a body, we might not know where the will is. We have not had an executor appointed, we don’t have access to that document quite often.
Douglas: It may not be found for a week or two.
Parsons: There was actually language put into the West Virginia code, I believe in 2020, or 2021, discussing funerary provisions that go into medical powers of attorney. So we are doing that as a general practice now.
You definitely want it in a document that whoever is making decisions for you, while you’re still alive and incapacitated, would have access to it so they know what to do. Even if you have prepaid for a funeral, whoever is dealing with your body might not know that. In your situation, you clearly know what your mother’s plans are. If you have someone in my situation, I don’t have a spouse or children who would be around and maybe know that, right? So you would want to make sure you had that outlined in a document that whoever is around making those decisions would know you prepaid for a funeral.
Douglas: You’re talking about what happens when you’ve died and the hospital is asking, “Where do you want us to send the body?”
Parsons: I have clients that it seems to go one or two ways. I have clients that just put a general provision in that document that says, “My agent who’s named as the medical power of attorney can decide what to do with my remains.” I have other clients that want me to very specifically outline they are to be cremated, and where the ashes are to be spread, and what type of service can be held and who may have ashes. It’s a personal preference, but there is a legalized and outlined way to do that now.
Douglas: At the same time, we still end up with an awful lot of people who die without a will, without any plan.
Parsons: Yes. And well, as I said that you have your life planning documents, your powers of attorney and your revocable living trust can be a life planning document. And I can elaborate on that later if you want. But yes, an estate plan also is important. I have clients that come in who I think don’t want to face their death.
Douglas: It’s a tough conversation for a lot of people to have.
Parsons: The funny thing about life is none of us are getting out alive. It’s just the way it works. That’s the levity I try to bring to the situation. I have noticed in 20 years of doing this, I have two camps of people. You have the people who don’t want to talk about it. And if they do come to my office, they are there begrudgingly. And then you have people who will come in and have binders with tabs and an outline. They have thought carefully about this, and they want to make sure everything is buttoned up so that there’s no issue at their death. I just think it’s a matter of how you view the dying process.
And as you said, it’s not a pleasant conversation to ever have. But the other thing I tell clients is, “Well, you don’t have to have a will. I know where your stuff goes when you die if you don’t.” I get a puzzled look quite often. “Well, the West Virginia code, through the law of intestate succession, tells us what to do with your stuff.” And that normally registers a light bulb moment of, “Oh, no, I don’t want the code or lawmakers to decide who gets my stuff.”
Douglas: I’m sure you see this every day. But what’s the scope? I mean, this is an aging state with an older population. I imagine it’s tough, too, as families have moved away. It doesn’t feel like there’s any central clearinghouse of this information either.
Parsons: There isn’t. That’s why I got into this business. I’ve been an attorney for 20 years. I’ve been doing this since about 2011, because of what happened in my own family with my father. When I lived through that, I realized, “Wow, there’s a gross under-education of the population about the importance of powers of attorney, which I call your life planning documents. There’s a gross lack of education about that. There are attorneys who handle this work, but not a lot. That’s why I shifted gears and decided to focus on this.”
Discussing funeral arrangements is never easy, but as News Director Eric Douglas found out through personal experience with his mom, it is much easier to do it in advance than it is after a loved one has passed away. As part of his series “Getting Into Their Reality: Caring For Aging Parents.” Douglas spoke with Tom Nichols, the owner of Bartlett Nichols Funeral Home in St. Albans, to understand the process.
Discussing funeral arrangements is never easy, but as News Director Eric Douglas found out through personal experience with his mom, it is much easier to do it in advance than it is after a loved one has passed away.
As part of his series “Getting Into Their Reality: Caring For Aging Parents.” Douglas spoke with Tom Nichols, the owner of Bartlett Nichols Funeral Home in St. Albans, to understand the process.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Douglas: Do you have any tips for how you talk to your parents about arranging for their funeral?
Nichols: Most generally, the parents come in first and make arrangements so their kids don’t have to deal with it. But like you said, as you see them getting more ill, you take it upon yourself to try to come in and see what to do, and how we need to do it if something would occur, death at home or something. We just kind of guide you with some options.
Douglas: What do you need to do? What are the options?
Nichols: We will ask what type of arrangements you’d like, whether it be burial or cremation or whatever else you may have in mind. Say we’re doing a burial, we’ll go over a general price list, show you our charges, then we’ll go over caskets and then a vault if you need a vault. Once we get that type of thing out, and then we get figures and things, depending on how you want to pay, there’s two options. Some funeral homes use insurance to put your money into and most people use a trust account. If you give me $1 or you give me $10,000, we register it with state of West Virginia.
Douglas: Some people will worry, how do I know the money is going to be there if it’s five years from now, 10 years from now? This is all secured, the funds are secured and there’s a whole system in place for that?
Nichols: Once we put your money in that trust, it’s locked in and secure. It can’t be used until time of death, then we are allowed to use that money. We have to register those monies with the attorney general and they oversee your monies to make sure we’re doing a proper and correct thing.
Douglas: I actually got a letter, just a month or so later from the Attorney General’s Office saying this money is secured. I had no idea that was a thing.
Nichols: Once we register, then you do get a letter. It can be two weeks to four weeks, on average, you will get a letter from the attorney general. It just tells you we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing by registering it. And then when death occurs, then we do a death report, and that also goes to to the attorney general. If the money was in there five years and it drew interest, we have to show them that. And if there’s a refund coming back to you or not, just because money’s in the account, we can’t keep all of it. Because the interest is what goes with the inflation. And if it’s more monies than what you paid, or what today’s price is, then we refund back to the estate.
Douglas: What if the price has gone up, and it’s more than what I put in there?
Nichols: Then the funeral home eats that charge. You don’t pay the difference or anything because you paid it in full. We take the chance on taking that loss.
Douglas: After I went through this process with my mom, it was a relief. I don’t even have to think about it. I literally just have to make a phone call.
Nichols: Then usually you will meet one more time to go over times and things, what day you want to try to set schedule and your services and things and then of course coordinate with your minister and the cemetery. That’s really all you’ve got to do.
Douglas: I assume just about every funeral home does this kind of service.
Nichols: As far as I know, we all do. A lot of times we’ll do pre-arrangements for if your mom or dad went into a nursing home and they’ve got a little bit too much money, that they’ve got to do a spend down to meet Medicaid or Medicare limits. That keeps mom and dad qualified if they’re in a nursing home or facility.
Douglas: When I took my mom in, she ended up choosing some things I didn’t imagine she would choose. I don’t know that I would have thought to do that if she hadn’t been there to make those decisions.
Nichols: She told you that’s what she wanted. And you don’t have to second guess.
On this West Virginia Morning, discussing funeral arrangements is never easy, but as News Director Eric Douglas found out through personal experience with his mom, it is much easier to do it in advance than it is after a loved one has passed away.
On this West Virginia Morning, discussing funeral arrangements is never easy, but as News Director Eric Douglas found out through personal experience with his mom, it is much easier to do it in advance than it is after a loved one has passed away.
As part of his series, “Getting Into Their Reality: Caring For Aging Parents,” Douglas spoke with Tom Nichols, the owner of Bartlett Nichols Funeral Home in St. Albans to understand the process.
Also, in this show, the House of Delegates last week approved House Bill 2007. The bill would limit gender-affirming medical care for anyone under 18. During two committee hearings on the bill, lawmakers called no expert witnesses. Curtis Tate spoke with Dr. Kacie Kidd of the WVU School of Medicine about what gender-affirming care for minors is and is not.
West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.
Support for our news bureaus comes from West Virginia University, Concord University, and Shepherd University.
Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning
