This happened in the State of Minnesota.
Hello. We thank you for your advice in advance. We're sorry if this is long, but please bear with us as we explain our situation.
Our Brother passed away on Wednesday, December 17, 2014. His Funeral just this past week, Tuesday, January 13th and his Burial was on Wednesday, January 14, 2015. He was a bigger man - about 38 inches from shoulder to shoulder and stood 5' 11" tall. Because of his size, we needed an over-sized casket either already made or customized built . Although our family didn't have much money, we came together & gave him a very, very beautiful funeral (decorations, presentation, food, etc).
We are being charged almost $9,000 to rent just the funeral home for 1.5 days. Included in this amount was his casket which cost $2,600 alone. Now the Funeral Director was a nice man (or so we thought), as he seemed to try to accommodate us - for example, opening the funeral home for us at night so we can have a visual of how to decorate, or answering any quick questions we had over the phone.
*This next paragraph below, I'm going to explain on behalf of my older sister & my Brother's wife as they were present at the time of the conversation.*
Now back to the cost of the casket. The funeral director mentioned to us that because of our Brother's size, we will never be able to find anyone that has a casket already made for him. Stupidly, we believed him and did not do any research ourselves. He said to not order anything online and not to look anywhere else because he will customize my Brother's casket himself. We believed him. He gave us a list of woods to choose from. We asked him if he had photos. He said NO. We asked him if would could take the list home to talk with the family first. He said NO because it was his only copy. So we had to quickly choose the wood per his request. And that was the end of the conversation, no other questions.
When you think of a casket, you have a visual idea of how a normal one is supposed to look like. It's supposed to be nice, it's supposed to open nicely at the top, have cushions/ bed, it's presentable and something you should be proud of since someone you love dearly will be buried in it forever. But unfortunately, that was not the case for us. We forever got the shock of our lives.
First I'd like to say that the way they brought my Brother to the Funeral home was very disrespectful and demeaning to our family. Just because he's a bigger man, doesn't mean that you do the least for him. They brought him in a pick up truck. Not even a hearse, or a cargo van. There was no cover over the bed of the truck. The weather was really cold (around 20 degrees or below) at the time. When they pulled him out of the truck, even the top was cracked open so the wind already blew into him. We were all very disappointed, upset, disgraced, anything you could think we felt.
The most shocker was definitely his "casket". Or should I even call it that? It's more of a wood crate. It was something that you build to ship something out. It was very unbelievable. We couldn't even comprehend what was going on... if whether his actual casket was inside that large wood box. It had four sides, was pine, there we no handles, had one very thin piece of white cloth inside, and was just a box. We were very upset to find that there was no other casket inside that box, and there he lay - very uncomfortable and unstable. It was so over-sized for our Brother that we couldn't even reach him. We had to stand on a chair to touch him. The whole situation was absurd. You can imagine how upset we were and how we felt. There was not enough time to purchase a different casket for our Brother because he was bigger. We called everywhere, and unfortunately we had to keep him in this box. Just writing this right now - tears gush down as we will forever remember him inside this terrible box. We felt hopeless. At the time, we could only apologize and say Goodbye to our beautiful Brother.
We trusted the Funeral Director to build our Brother a beautiful casket since his whole funeral was beautiful. Instead, he took advantage of us. Of course, we don't do this often so we wouldn't know what questions to ask… but when someone tells you that they will build a custom casket to fit him and doesn't say anything else about it, you wouldn't ask questions. You have a vision as to what a normal casket looks like… and it definitely would not a box. He blames us for not asking. But No, he took advantage of us and the whole situation. Being a funeral director, you would think to explain properly as to how it's going to be built if it wasn't going to look normal... but he didn't. If we knew all of this, we would've found a different vendor but it was too late. Instead, what seemed like a $300 "casket" was built and he pocketed the rest.
Please help in giving us advice as to what we should do. Do you think we would have a good case to get him for what he did? Emotional Distress or anything? We cannot let the funeral director go. We want to make sure he does not do this to anyone else. We've now heard that he's done this to other families before us. Our family is very devastated. It breaks our hearts knowing that our Brother will forever lay to rest in a box.
Hello. We thank you for your advice in advance. We're sorry if this is long, but please bear with us as we explain our situation.
Our Brother passed away on Wednesday, December 17, 2014. His Funeral just this past week, Tuesday, January 13th and his Burial was on Wednesday, January 14, 2015. He was a bigger man - about 38 inches from shoulder to shoulder and stood 5' 11" tall. Because of his size, we needed an over-sized casket either already made or customized built . Although our family didn't have much money, we came together & gave him a very, very beautiful funeral (decorations, presentation, food, etc).
We are being charged almost $9,000 to rent just the funeral home for 1.5 days. Included in this amount was his casket which cost $2,600 alone. Now the Funeral Director was a nice man (or so we thought), as he seemed to try to accommodate us - for example, opening the funeral home for us at night so we can have a visual of how to decorate, or answering any quick questions we had over the phone.
*This next paragraph below, I'm going to explain on behalf of my older sister & my Brother's wife as they were present at the time of the conversation.*
Now back to the cost of the casket. The funeral director mentioned to us that because of our Brother's size, we will never be able to find anyone that has a casket already made for him. Stupidly, we believed him and did not do any research ourselves. He said to not order anything online and not to look anywhere else because he will customize my Brother's casket himself. We believed him. He gave us a list of woods to choose from. We asked him if he had photos. He said NO. We asked him if would could take the list home to talk with the family first. He said NO because it was his only copy. So we had to quickly choose the wood per his request. And that was the end of the conversation, no other questions.
When you think of a casket, you have a visual idea of how a normal one is supposed to look like. It's supposed to be nice, it's supposed to open nicely at the top, have cushions/ bed, it's presentable and something you should be proud of since someone you love dearly will be buried in it forever. But unfortunately, that was not the case for us. We forever got the shock of our lives.
First I'd like to say that the way they brought my Brother to the Funeral home was very disrespectful and demeaning to our family. Just because he's a bigger man, doesn't mean that you do the least for him. They brought him in a pick up truck. Not even a hearse, or a cargo van. There was no cover over the bed of the truck. The weather was really cold (around 20 degrees or below) at the time. When they pulled him out of the truck, even the top was cracked open so the wind already blew into him. We were all very disappointed, upset, disgraced, anything you could think we felt.
The most shocker was definitely his "casket". Or should I even call it that? It's more of a wood crate. It was something that you build to ship something out. It was very unbelievable. We couldn't even comprehend what was going on... if whether his actual casket was inside that large wood box. It had four sides, was pine, there we no handles, had one very thin piece of white cloth inside, and was just a box. We were very upset to find that there was no other casket inside that box, and there he lay - very uncomfortable and unstable. It was so over-sized for our Brother that we couldn't even reach him. We had to stand on a chair to touch him. The whole situation was absurd. You can imagine how upset we were and how we felt. There was not enough time to purchase a different casket for our Brother because he was bigger. We called everywhere, and unfortunately we had to keep him in this box. Just writing this right now - tears gush down as we will forever remember him inside this terrible box. We felt hopeless. At the time, we could only apologize and say Goodbye to our beautiful Brother.
We trusted the Funeral Director to build our Brother a beautiful casket since his whole funeral was beautiful. Instead, he took advantage of us. Of course, we don't do this often so we wouldn't know what questions to ask… but when someone tells you that they will build a custom casket to fit him and doesn't say anything else about it, you wouldn't ask questions. You have a vision as to what a normal casket looks like… and it definitely would not a box. He blames us for not asking. But No, he took advantage of us and the whole situation. Being a funeral director, you would think to explain properly as to how it's going to be built if it wasn't going to look normal... but he didn't. If we knew all of this, we would've found a different vendor but it was too late. Instead, what seemed like a $300 "casket" was built and he pocketed the rest.
Please help in giving us advice as to what we should do. Do you think we would have a good case to get him for what he did? Emotional Distress or anything? We cannot let the funeral director go. We want to make sure he does not do this to anyone else. We've now heard that he's done this to other families before us. Our family is very devastated. It breaks our hearts knowing that our Brother will forever lay to rest in a box.
