Really angry with Co-op Funeralcare.

runnerbean17

Sorry for your loss..... We used the co-op funeral care when my Dad died a few weeks ago. We found them professional and friendly and would use them again (unfortunate phrase but it comes to us all) I think it's probably like alot of large companies you get your good branches and your not so good. It's a difficult time and I would definately write a letter to head office and also send one to the branch in question, after my Dads funeral we actually received a questionnaire through the post to fill in what we thought of their service. Thinking of you x

PaulJM

This is the point I was trying to make.
This surely should be an area that is exempt from 'up selling'...

I'd have thought that it should just be a gentle consultation with the bereaved.

Savvy_Sue

delain wrote: »

I think MSE requires company reps to register as reps, although your comment was helpful. I don't know how you go about registering though!

take a look at the Forum Rules - actually that's addressed to Funeralcare ...

sassyblue

Great. funeralcare even managed to double post :wall:

anniered

This is happening too much by this uncaring company I have just spent a year trying to get them to change the way they work. They destroyed my mum's funeral and left my family devestated and from the regional manager to the cheif executive they do not care! BEWARE DO NOT PUT YOUR LOVED ONE IN THEIR HANDS you will live to regret it. I cannot look at my lovely mum's photo without feeling I have let her down by trusting them. I have been contacted by other families who have been destroyed by this company and you would not believe the level of incompetence.

Mrs_Huggett

We have just lost our dear dad, and we have just had our funeral for him moved from the co op to another family run business. after a week of being told myself and my husband and another of his brothers would have to accept that if we travelled all the way to see him they would not be able to be there for us if 'something else came up'!!!My poor sis in law spoke to her pastor and he recommended the new guys, we went to see him yesterday,and there he was looking like he'd had one too many rums and was just having a nice kip!!! His West indies cricket shirt is just within his grasp, as is his hat, but he is in his best clothes of course, and listening to some lovely really old steelpan tunes, I will post again to let you all know how it went, but probably on the praise vents and warnings board, because there will be one warning and a hell of a lot of praise!!:A(that's dad that is)

cjw1976

· After giving in the GREEN form we were told that we needed both a GREEN and a WHITE form so that my husband’s body could be released from the hospital. My daughter and son were told this again the next day and were told the hospital would have given this to us at the time of death. She was adamant that we would have had it even when they both told her that we were not given it. This caused my daughter a great deal of stress because she thought that she must have lost the form as we were all in total shock and that we would have difficulties getting my husband’s body released.
My daughter phoned New Cross and was told that she would have to call the coroner but because it had gone past 5pm she had to wait until the following Monday. When she did they told her that you require EITHER THE GREEN OR THE WHITE and they would phone to confirm this with yourselves. Surely this information should be part of basic training!
· When my daughter and I selected the coffin we left the plaque choice to my son when he asked for a natural wood in oval shape with type B print whilst looking at the Daisy coffin booklet Lisa informed him that, “it meant nothing to her.”
· When we started making the arrangements it took a lot of phone calls to find out when the cars would be available for us to get to Westall. It was arranged that the suitable time we could have the cars would be on 9th that we would have to leave at 1.15 to get there for the burial at 2.30, this we confirmed would be suitable. When we booked and paid for arrangements for a memorial service, we made it to coincide with these timings.
On the Friday before the burial my daughter received a call to confirm the details and was told that we would have to bring the time of departure forward 12.30 to as we would not get to Westall in time, to this she reluctantly agreed, after stating this would mess up our other arrangements. When she got home there was a letter confirming the details but they said it was for a burial at 2.00 not 2.30, by this time it was Friday evening, so she phoned the next day and an out of hours person
phoned a manager who called back and said nothing could be done until Monday so leaving us so distressed that we would have to change all of the other arrangements.
However I insisted we had been told we were leaving at 1.15pm and said I wouldn’t agree to an earlier time.
For your information we visited Westall Park to choose my husband’s plot. They do about 3-4 burials a week so they are not actually too concerned about the exact time. Lisa also told us the plot could take two bodies in actual fact it is 4 cremains but only 1 body. I suggest that someone from Co-op looks in to the procedures at Westall Park for future reference as it was all very efficient.
· When my daughter spoke to the manager she requested that we no longer dealt with Lisa at Penn Road, so the manager moved us to St Marks. When my daughter went in there on the Tuesday to take my husband’s clothes, they had no idea that they were now dealing with his funeral, and my daughter had to go through all of the issues again with them again.
· When St Marks checked the details of the funeral they still had it on their computer that we were to be collected at 12.30 for burial at 2.00 not 1.15 for 2.30 even though my daughter had a letter apologising for the confusion over the time and offering £100 discount for the stress caused.
· We had requested that my husband effects were collected at the same time as he was and we were ensured that this would happen, when my daughter asked about these she told that they did not know they were meant to collect them and therefore hadn’t done so, however Darren came in and said that he would the next day.
· When my son collected my Husbands effects Darren was told that we would be getting a cheque for the money that had been in his possession and there was a note saying that we were to contact New Cross if we hadn’t had it in a week, last week my daughter went to New Cross to ask about this money, where she was told that the Co-op had it. Monday 27th my daughter phoned St Marks to ask about this and was told that it had been taken off the bill, she asked why she hadn’t been told this and was told that her brother had been told we would get a cheque. That doesn’t answer the question asked we would like to have been notified by you what had happened.
· After being told that the money had been taken off the bill, we asked why this had happened and who gave permission for this we were told that New Cross had said that is what we wanted. My daughter phoned New Cross to ask if they had said this, she was told that they had sent the money to the Co-op with the understanding that they would give us the option of what to do with the money. My daughter then phoned St Marks again to tell them that New cross had not given permission. To this she was told that they had! She said that she had no way to prove who had said what to which she was told by the manager Jane that she was not a liar and New Cross had said it, my daughter said that after the “farce” they had coursed over the funeral she was not confident over anything that was said to her by The Co-op. This she was told was deeply offensive.
My daughter felt that the whole attitude was that we were wasting her time by phoning her about this money and that it had been sorted because I had said that they might as take the money off the bill now as they already had and as they made it seem very difficult for us to get a cheque raised and sent to us by saying that the money would have to be transferred back to New Cross and to get them to send us a cheque. My daughter was not phoning to get the money back, but just to get to the bottom of who had given permission for this money to be taken.
· With all this distress that had been caused over wrong times, information meaning nothing to the staff, effects not being collected, we as a family were concerned that the burial would go as planned and as my daughter told the manager if it had been any other service we were paying for we would have taken our business elsewhere.
we still havent recieved a final bill but now they have sent the balifits after my daughter when It is me that is paying. we have recieved no appolgiesfromm them and even the balifits are saying we should go for compensation.

tim63

I am in the middle of replying to the FOS about a complaint about the co-op and just googled co-op complaints out of curiosity and found this thread. My point;
My aunt purchased a pre-paid plan from the local rep who she had known for years. She did this when she was in a vulnerable state without the knowledge of myself or other family members. She was 80 and she purchased it approx 10 days after having to arrange a funeral for a close relative. She had always expressed her desire for our local independant funeral directors to care for her when the time came.
When she passed and we contacted the co-op to notify them we was told we couldn't use the local firm and could only use one of their own branches. Now some of you will be saying that is obviously the case but to a vulnerable 80 year old this was CLEARLY MIS-SOLD!!!!
The woman I spoke to told me if I didn't want to use the appointed company 20 miles away then we can cancel and get a refund minus £100 for their admin. They had taken my aunts money several years prior to this, ripped her off and wanted to charge £100 for the privilege! The attitude of the woman was similar to one I've read on here but my dentist receptionist is much friendlier than this woman was! These people are dealing with people struggling to cope with the loss of a loved one and she clearly didn't care.
I wanted to make a complaint about this and the selling of this policy and the address of the co-op office that I was given to write to wasn't a valid one which I discovered when my mail was returned (sent recorded delivery).
After obtaining the correct address I wrote to them and several letters later (after they apologised for 'the inconvenience') was offered a full refund plus interest at the bank of englands rate. By this time my grief and distress had turned to rage and I rejected this saying we wanted compensation for the appalling way we had been treated.
After getting nowhere it was put in the hands of the FOS and the co-op have just offered an insulting £100 after months of fighting hence the writing of the letter mentioned telling the FOS to inform the co-op where to stick it!
Now we will probably have to wait a few more months before the next episode. The co-op has deliberately made things difficult to complain on top of everything else in the hope we would cave in and give up allowing them to charge the £100 admin cost.
It has been months of hassle but I am not prepared to let callous companies like this off the hook and urge anyone that has experienced problems with this or any other company to take a stand against them.
The fight goes on....