Update 5/3/08 - The next time a funeral home tells you it’s a great idea to “guarantee today’s prices” by prepaying your funeral, pull out this article. Funeral Consumers Alliance has long warned against prepaying for your funeral, but even we’re surprised at how widespread the scams and stolen consumer money have become in the preneed industry. The latest preneed company teetering on the brink --- along with hundreds of millions of dollars consumers have prepaid for “peace of mind” --- is National Prearranged Services.

(This is a reprint of an article that appeared in the FAMSA Newsletter, Spring 1999)
The "Body Farm" it's been called—the brain-child of Dr. William Bass, a forensic anthropologist—and the only location of its kind in the country. Several out-of-town acres owned by the University of Tennessee (UT) in Knoxville have been set aside to study body decomposition and the relevant stages of insect development.

The bodies there have been donated for scientific study, and—for the most part—will end up in the university's collection of skeletons that make up a large database of body-types. With a growing collection, forensic experts are charting the differences between male and female, old and young, black and white, tall and short, heavy and thin. The skeletal studies provide a basis for computer whizzes who can then reconstruct likely features as an aid in identification.

What's the state board doing sending threatening letters to a retired consumer advocate?

Which of these is a threat to consumer safety:

• A. A funeral director who dips into customers' prepaid funeral money to buy a new hearse
• B. Funeral homes that rent out their embalming rooms to fly-by-night tissue brokers who dissect bodies and sell them for profit
• C. A retired woman volunteering for a nonprofit organization that helps protect grieving consumers from overspending and fraud

Most people would pick A and B. But on March 19, 2007, the North Carolina Board of Funeral Service apparently thought the most important thing they could do with taxpayer dollars was send a letter to a Funeral Consumers Alliance volunteer threatening her with criminal prosecution for - wait for it - helping a grieving family. Mary Brack, President of the FCA of the Central Carolinas (FCACC), was shocked to receive a letter from NCBFS attorney Stephen Dirksen telling her to "cease and desist from this behavior immediately and take whatever steps are necessary to prevent future representations to the public that FCACC may practice funeral service in North Carolina . . . .North Carolina law provides clear criminal liability for anyone who practices funeral directing without a license" [see attachments below].

The High Cost of Funerals and How to Beat it — The American Consumer Institute issues ConsumerGrams on smart funeral shopping with help from Funeral Consumers Alliance.