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Funeral Homes that sell “Dignity” Services have added a new twist to the smoke and mirrors of funeral pricing to further their profits and take away consumer choice.

Recently, many funeral homes announced lower casket prices in an attempt to shut out retail casket stores. They took $1,000 off the price of every casket, giving the appearance of casket store prices.

BUT! At the same time, they raised the price of their service by $1,000 to make up for the loss. So, the price remains the same. You are still paying the same $15,000 for a funeral at one of these funeral homes. There is NO real savings.

The smart thing to do is to call funeral homes to compare service prices in your area—make sure to ask for the price of the service without the casket. Many funeral homes will try to force you to purchase their casket package, and offer you some sort of sham discount.

Federal law states that funeral homes may not condition the sale of a service to the sale of merchandise, such as a casket, vault or flowers. Nor can funeral homes refuse you service or charge a higher price. You have the legal right to shop for any part of the service.

The cost of a funeral doesn’t stop with the funeral home. Often, you will have many other bills as well, including medical expenses.

Planning is the key to reasonable funeral costs. You shop for major purchases like homes, cars and even TV’s. Shop for a funeral the same way and avoid the scams of the funeral industry.

For free assistance in funeral planning, call the Funeral Society of Texas, Inc. any time. Call Bob at 817-319-1522, or Ernie at 817-267-5590. We will be glad to provide guidance that could save you thousands of dollars.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, April 15th, 2006 at 2:19 pm and is filed under Scams. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.