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.”
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.
The owners of a Putnam County-based funeral home have been ordered to pay nearly $3 million after being accused of defrauding an Iowa-based insurance company by cashing in on pre-need funeral arrangements for more than 100 people who weren’t actually dead.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that Chief U.S. District Judge Robert Chambers ruled Monday that Chad and Billie Harding must pay about $2.8 million — three times the amount they took from Homesteaders Life Insurance Co.
Chambers granted the insurance company default judgment in June, after the funeral home’s owners and their attorney, Jeff Woods, didn’t respond to court orders. Woods says his clients are involved in other lawsuits.
Prearranged plans free families from financial and other burdens that arise upon the passing of a loved one.
A federal judge has ruled for an insurance company in its case against the operators of a Putnam County funeral home accused of filing false death claims on behalf of pre-need contract customers who weren’t actually dead.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports Homesteaders Life Insurance Company was granted default judgment Thursday in its lawsuit against Poca-based Gatens-Harding Funeral Home owners Chad and Billie Harding.
The lawsuit said that the Hardings cashed in on over $1 million worth of pre-need funeral contracts for 111 people who were still alive during an eight-year period.
The Hardings denied the allegations in a filing last year by their attorney Jeff Woods.
The judge cited a “complete lack of interest in defending” the case.
The amount the Hardings will be ordered to pay Homesteaders hasn’t yet been determined.
West Virginia’s attorney general claims in a lawsuit that a now-closed Braxton County funeral home and its owner misappropriated money from prepaid funeral contracts.
The complaint in Kanawha County Circuit Court alleges that the former Stockert-Sizemore Funeral Home Inc. and its owner, Timothy Sizemore of Nitro, violated the state’s Consumer Credit and Protection Act and the West Virginia Preneed Act.
The funeral home is accused of accepting more than $30,000 from at least seven people as advance payment for funeral services and failing to place the money in a trust account or insurance policy as required by law. The business also allegedly mishandled records.
The funeral home was sold in November 2013 and now operates by a different name under new owners.
