World’s Largest Funeral Corp,Wrong Body,Wrong Grave Scandal-yourfuneralguy

Seal of Brookline Massachusetts where the scandal took place Image via Wikipedia

The World’s Largest Funeral Corporation Service Corporation International, NYSE:SCI has found it self in a wrong body wrong grave scandal. Worse yet it involved a  Jewish Burial. This all took place in  Massachusetts.

The article entitled in the Boston Herald  “Funeral BigWig recuses Self on Burial Inquiry”

The scandal has wide significance because the Individual Involved Kim L Perry, who is (was)the Chairperson of the Massachusetts Funeral Board.

Snippet

Kim L. Perry said she is a New England manager for Houston-based Service Corporation International, which owns Stanetsky Memorial Chapel in Brookline. Perry has been on the board since 2005. Her five-year term expires next month.

Stanetsky(memorial Chapel  buried one body on Aug. 26 in a grave meant for someone else, then exhumed it the next day and replaced the remains with the right body – all without ever pulling permits at the city’s health department, as required by state law, or notifying authorities, according to Stan Kaplan, executive director of the Jewish Cemetery Association of Massachusetts. JCAM owns the Chevra Kadusha Cemetery in Woburn, where the burial mix-up took place. Jewish law prohibits burying a body where another has been, because the ground is then considered desecrated. SCI said it is cooperating with the state.

via news.bostonherald.com

Funeral Industry|Funeral News|Funeral blog by Your Funeral Guy

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Chicago-Skokie SCI Cemetery Flag, Memorial Mess-Your Funeral Guy

Image via Wikipedia

Service Corporation International has a created another graveside flap, this time it is not just over grave momentos but flying flags, at a war hero’s grave. A new Manager came to Memorial Park  Cemetery in December 2009 and has told the mother and father to take (at least one of the )flags at the site down.

Skokie, Ill. – The father of a soldier from Skokie has made a deal with a cemetery that will allow him to continue to fly an American flag over his son’s grave.

Last week, Memorial Park in Skokie told Elie Bitton that he had to remove the ten foot flag poles that bookended the monument to his son Albert Bitton, or the cemetery would do it for him.

Army Corporal Bitton was killed by a roadside bomb in 2008, and for the past two and a half years the poles have flown an American flag and an MIA/POW flag on either side of the black granite headstone.

His father visits the grave three times a day, and there has never been a problem until last week when the cemetery’s new manager Ron Graeff told him the flags and the flowers around the grave site would have to go because they didn’t conform to the rules and regulations.

Graeff had only been in charge since December 2009, so he could not say why no one told Bitton the flag poles were too tall when he put them in. The cemetery’s regulations do not permit any memorials taller than four feet.

“After two and a half years, you’re gonna tell me what to do, the flag is down or not. He’s an anti-American, it’s an anti-American, because if it was really an American he would never said that,” an outraged Elie Bitton told Fox Chicago News at the cemetery.

via chicagopressrelease.com

After 2.5  years and telling the family to take the graves down? The world’s largest funeral corporation continued inconsistent enforcement of their  cemetery policies. The Illinois Cemetery Oversight Act will not be much help this matter, although the family has contacted the Department Of Veterans Affairs. Service Corporation International, NYSE:SCI is known by some as big death and the evil funeral empire.

This story was featured on July 28th 2010, on the Fox News Channel Americas News room. Death care Scandals at SCI Have become quite common over the past Several Years.

Funeral industry, Funeral News, Funeral Blog by Your Funeral Guy

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In Chicago-Land Funeral Ripoffs Abound!Your Funeral Guy

Thanks to the Chicago Tribune for posting a recent article  and warning the funeral consumer. Funeral Rip OFFs are alive and well in Chicago-land,  Being a Funeral Director,- this month I was given the privilege to sit with a Family in the Funeral arrangement for a mother’s son. At the Funeral I performed the ministers function at no charge.

The Funeral Director(doing the arrangement- did not hand the family a general price list. (Required by LAW). THE FUNERAL DIRECTOR DID NOT GIVE ME  GENERAL PRICE LIST When I asked for One-also required by Law.

The Cemetery charged $4,700 For the Grave site. I considered this theft. THE MOTHER HAD PROMISED THE SON THAT SPECIFIC GRAVE SITE SO THEY GOT AWAY with it!

I was able to assist the family with obtaining a third party casket on the internet which saved a few thousand.(Thanks to the Star Legacy Casket Network) But all in all the prices charged were way too high. In this instance as often is the case funeral cost became a factor in grief.

What was truly sad is that services at the Cemetery ALONE cost over $7,000.00. YES, it was a the High PROFILE WORLD”S LARGEST FUNERAL & CEMETERY Corporation, NYSE: SCI, Service Corporation International, SCI within the Chicago City Limits.

The NFDA average  funeral cost figure of $7,323.00 is from 2006, That average traditional funeral is much more today.

Snippet From the Chicago Tribune:

Death is big business. How big, you ask? The National Funeral Directors Association says the average funeral costs $7,323 — and that doesn’t include the cost of a cemetery plot, a gravestone and burial services.

In all, dealing with the death of a loved one can cost more than $10,000, making it one of the most expensive purchases most families will make. So why do we do so little research on the topic?

“People are in denial about death right up until the bitter end,” said Ed Markin, who runs the Funeral Help Program in Virginia Beach, Va. “You delay talking about it at your own fiscal peril is what it all boils down to.”

Markin said funeral costs vary widely, controlled almost entirely by the amount of research you do — and when you do it. He said you can save almost 50 percent by shopping around and getting written quotes before you need them.

via www.chicagotribune.com

Funeral Industry|Funeral News| Funeral Blog by Your Funeral Guy

Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sc-cons-0624-problem-solver-funerals-20100624,0,1533838.story