As if the sadness in Chicago with night after night of unrelenting violence weren’t enough, it appears as though some funeral homes are banking extra money by dipping into taxpayer-funded programs intended to fund funerals. Funeral homes cashing in twice on Chicago’s sadness is unthinkable.
Up to $7,500 is available through the Illinois Crime Victim’s Compensation Fund to help poor families bury their children. Some funeral homes are aware of this and are charging families the full amount – and more while withholding services that should be included in the burial.
Susan Johnson, the executive director of Chicago Survivors stated to Fox News on August 22, 2018:
“Every funeral home in the state knows that victims get $7,500 for a funeral and it’s their goal to charge the entire amount because it’s easy money,” Susan Johnson.
Ms. Johnson’s organization helps families who have family members who were the victims of homicides. As the Fox News article noted:
“The state – along with the federal government – provides eligible victims of violent crime with up to $27,000 in financial assistance for out-of-pocket expenses. The families of murder victims get $7,500 for funeral costs.”
Where the money goes
The National Funeral Directors Association states the average funeral cost is about $8,000 while the FTC places it a bit higher.
According to the August 22, 2018 article on Fox News:
The $7,500 from the Crime Victim’s Compensation fund is supposed to go toward staff salary, use of facilities, transportation, a casket as well as other memorialization costs. The price jumps if flowers, clothing or an obituary is added.”
Apparently, some funeral homes are taking the full $7,500 and then charging much higher amounts and not providing services. There are stories of funeral homes essentially holding family’s hostage until they pay the higher amounts. Said Susan Johnson (who is also a pastor): “few offenders ever face consequences.”
As Chicago is in the midst of a budget crisis, it is difficult for the consumer protection department to follow-up on funeral home fraud.
States Joshua Solcum executive director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance told Fox News, “(The families) have an ethical right to be angry. It’s one of the worst ways to victimize people.”
The unethical funeral parlors understand another sad fact, and it deals with the “opportunity” aspect of the fraud. The families who were victimized well understand they were probably being taken advantage of by greedy funeral homes. However, the greedy funeral homes know that families are often burying their children, children who have died in the most violent of ways. They are so grief-stricken they can no longer fight or care.
Stories abound in Chicago as to how funeral homes often have relatives sign forms at the height of their grief, such as when the body is being viewed. The relatives have no idea what they are signing until huge bills come in the mail. There are many other accounts of “bait and switch” tactics, where one casket is substituted for another or extreme cases where the bodies have not even been prepared.
What’s the need?
As these cases have emerged, it is not difficult to answer the question of where is the need in this fraud? The need is money; to make as much as possible, capitalizing on Chicago’s terrible crime wave. The unethical funeral parlors well understand that money is available and that it is government-backed. No matter what happens they will get their money and they will charge whatever they can and to claim as much of that money as possible.
How is it possible for a funeral director to rationalize this kind of behavior? How is it possible to take the full amount of money from the government, gouge the family and not even provide the promised services? Most probably that in addition to a complete breakdown in ethics, the funeral directors in question do not see grieving families, rather than cash generation.
The funeral directors undoubtedly see the $7,500 as free money, and if they charge an extra $3,000 on top of that, they will rationalize that a “$3,000 funeral is a good bargain.”
Funeral homes cashing in twice on Chicago’s sadness – there is no reason to believe that an unethical funeral director given opportunity, need and rationalization will behave any differently than a dirty accountant, politician or nurse.
