美国国家公共电台 NPR Despite Decades-Old Law, Funeral Prices Are Still Unclear

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Making decisions about how to honor a loved one who has died is a heart-wrenching task, and there's not a lot of mental or emotional space to think about comparison shopping. There is a federal regulation on the books called the Funeral Rule that's supposed to protect consumers who have lost loved ones. It requires funeral businesses to provide potential customers with clear pricing. But Robert Benincasa from NPR's investigations² team reports it doesn't always work like it's supposed to.

ROBERT BENINCASA, BYLINE³: Shortly after Ed Howard's father was diagnosed with an advanced form of cancer and given six months to live, Howard and his sister sat down and talked about what to do. They decided⁴ she would call around to some funeral homes to figure out how much their father's arrangements would cost.

ED HOWARD: And I got a call from her, nearly in tears. And she said that she had spent pretty much all day on the phone and on the internet simply trying to price funeral services, and she couldn't do it. She actually just couldn't get a straight answer about what products and services were being offered and how much they cost.

BENINCASA: Howard confidently told her that he'd take care of it. After all, he isn't just any consumer. He's a lawyer specializing in consumer issues for the Center for Public Interest Law at the University of San Diego. He's also the group's head litigator and lobbyist. Getting the information, he thought, would be pretty easy.

It wasn't.

HOWARD: It took me, as a longtime lawyer and a professional consumer advocate, literally⁵ an eight-hour day just to get a solid list of what funeral services were offered by nearby funeral establishments and how much they cost - eight hours.

BENINCASA: Howard's problem may have been frustrating⁶, but it isn't new. The National Funeral Directors Association used to prohibit members from advertising⁷ prices. It ended that ban in 1968 after being sued by the Justice Department.

That culture of secrecy⁸ persists in the self-described death care industry. A kind of strategic ambiguity⁹ about prices is part of the business model.

In our investigation¹, NPR found that funeral directors prefer to keep price information to themselves until a consumer is inside their premises¹⁰, where it's easier to make a sale and harder for consumers to go elsewhere.

JOSHUA SLOCUM: The consumer stands firmly in 1951 because that seems to be the technological¹¹ level and the transparency level that the majority of American funeral homes are stuck at.

BENINCASA: Joshua Slocum is executive director of Funeral Consumers Alliance, a death care industry watchdog group.

SLOCUM: In an era when you can go online and look up the price range for products as trivial as eraser caps for a pencil to a new smartphone, good luck sitting down and finding anything from your local funeral home websites.

BENINCASA: The Federal Trade Commission has sought to fix the industry's lack of price transparency and rein¹² in a variety of deceptive¹³ and anti-consumer practices. The Federal Funeral Rule, enacted¹⁴ in 1984 after years of resistance by funeral businesses, requires an itemized price list, known as the general price list. Consumers must be given the list when they show up at the funeral home, and they're entitled to prices over the phone. The list is supposed to ensure that if a customer wants to buy, for example, a memorial service but doesn't want to buy programs, cards or elaborate floral arrangements, it's easy to specify¹⁵ that.

But in recent years, FTC regulators shopping undercover have found that about 1 in 4 funeral homes break the rule and fail to disclose price information. That's even though they risk large fines from the federal government. Slocum and other critics say it's time to bring the disclosure requirements into the age of mobile platforms, searchable data and social media. Price lists, they say, should be online. Many in the industry don't agree.

SCOTT GILLIGAN: I have to think that most of this is going to be market driven.

BENINCASA: Scott Gilligan is a lawyer for the National Funeral Directors Association, which represents thousands of funeral directors around the country.

GILLIGAN: If people want price information on websites, funeral homes are going respond by putting it out there. But I'd rather do that because that's my business decision than do it because I'm afraid of getting fined $40,000 by the federal government.

BENINCASA: In San Francisco, Will Chang is betting that there is demand for online price information and that he can capitalize on it.

WILL CHANG: That's the goal. We're hoping that we can disrupt the funeral industry.

BENINCASA: Chang heads a Silicon¹⁶ Valley startup that has collected thousands of funeral home price lists and posted them on a site called parting.com. He did it by having a team of workers pose as consumers and repeatedly call funeral homes until, he says, most of them turned over their price lists.

CHANG: Sometimes it took months, and sometimes we couldn't even get the prices at all. But we were able to get about 75 percent of all the funeral homes across the United States.

BENINCASA: Chang was shocked that many funeral directors wouldn't even use email and preferred fax machines, a fact borne out by NPR's reporting on the industry. And the resistance Chang faced in getting the price lists means it could be challenging to keep them up to date. So his strategy is to convince funeral directors to partner with his site and pay him a referral fee. Some have reacted badly, even threatening to sue him. But...

CHANG: A lot of these funeral homes now have younger funeral directors in their 30s or 40s, and they totally get what we're doing. And they've completely embraced us. So we feel very good about the direction of where the funeral industry is heading.

BENINCASA: In looking at the data he's collected, Chang found wild swings and prices for similar services. In our analysis of prices in several NPR member station markets, so did we.

In the Nashville area, for example, we found the minimum fee for using a funeral home varied¹⁷ from less than a thousand dollars to more than 4,000. The cost of a simple cremation¹⁸ in that market started below a thousand dollars and topped out at over 2,700.

At the national level, prices are up. The Funeral Rule was last amended¹⁹ 23 years ago, and since then, funeral prices have risen faster than the rate of inflation.

As for Howard, the consumer advocate who suddenly became a consumer, he went to the California legislature about a year after his father died and lobbied to require funeral businesses to post price lists online. After initial opposition²⁰ from the industry, a compromised law took effect in 2013, and the state now requires some information to be posted online.

Robert Benincasa, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF BERRY WEIGHT'S "WALKING BY YOUR SIDE")

1 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

2 investigations   

（正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究

参考例句：

• His investigations were intensive and thorough but revealed nothing. 他进行了深入彻底的调查，但没有发现什么。
• He often sent them out to make investigations. 他常常派他们出去作调查。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

5 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

6 frustrating   

adj.产生挫折的，使人沮丧的，令人泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的现在分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• It's frustrating to have to wait so long. 要等这么长时间，真令人懊恼。
• It was a demeaning and ultimately frustrating experience. 那是一次有失颜面并且令人沮丧至极的经历。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 advertising   

n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的

参考例句：

• Can you give me any advice on getting into advertising? 你能指点我如何涉足广告业吗?
• The advertising campaign is aimed primarily at young people. 这个广告宣传运动主要是针对年轻人的。

8 secrecy   

n.秘密，保密，隐蔽

参考例句：

• All the researchers on the project are sworn to secrecy.该项目的所有研究人员都按要求起誓保守秘密。
• Complete secrecy surrounded the meeting.会议在绝对机密的环境中进行。

9 ambiguity   

n.模棱两可；意义不明确

参考例句：

• The telegram was misunderstood because of its ambiguity.由于电文意义不明确而造成了误解。
• Her answer was above all ambiguity.她的回答毫不含糊。

10 premises   

n.建筑物，房屋

参考例句：

• According to the rules,no alcohol can be consumed on the premises.按照规定，场内不准饮酒。
• All repairs are done on the premises and not put out.全部修缮都在家里进行，不用送到外面去做。

11 technological   

adj.技术的；工艺的

参考例句：

• A successful company must keep up with the pace of technological change.一家成功的公司必须得跟上技术变革的步伐。
• Today,the pace of life is increasing with technological advancements.当今， 随着科技进步，生活节奏不断增快。

12 rein   

n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治

参考例句：

• The horse answered to the slightest pull on the rein.只要缰绳轻轻一拉,马就作出反应。
• He never drew rein for a moment till he reached the river.他一刻不停地一直跑到河边。

13 deceptive   

adj.骗人的，造成假象的，靠不住的

参考例句：

• His appearance was deceptive.他的外表带有欺骗性。
• The storyline is deceptively simple.故事情节看似简单，其实不然。

14 enacted   

制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• legislation enacted by parliament 由议会通过的法律
• Outside in the little lobby another scene was begin enacted. 外面的小休息室里又是另一番景象。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

15 specify   

vt.指定，详细说明

参考例句：

• We should specify a time and a place for the meeting.我们应指定会议的时间和地点。
• Please specify what you will do.请你详述一下你将做什么。

16 silicon   

n.硅(旧名矽)

参考例句：

• This company pioneered the use of silicon chip.这家公司开创了使用硅片的方法。
• A chip is a piece of silicon about the size of a postage stamp.芯片就是一枚邮票大小的硅片。

17 varied   

adj.多样的，多变化的

参考例句：

• The forms of art are many and varied.艺术的形式是多种多样的。
• The hotel has a varied programme of nightly entertainment.宾馆有各种晚间娱乐活动。

18 cremation   

n.火葬，火化

参考例句：

• Cremation is more common than burial in some countries. 在一些国家，火葬比土葬普遍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Garbage cremation can greatly reduce the occupancy of land. 垃圾焚烧可以大大减少占用土地。 来自互联网

19 Amended   

adj. 修正的 动词amend的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He asked to see the amended version. 他要求看修订本。
• He amended his speech by making some additions and deletions. 他对讲稿作了些增删修改。

20 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。