Co op funeral

windmill999

A really disappointing and upsetting experience with the co op funeral. Would not recommend to anyone. No empathy no care use mobile funeral people who really do not know their local area. My dad was with them after cremation for a month yet the cemetery was open where he had a pre paid plot waiting they just ‘assumed’ it was closed due to covid. Not an excuse. My mum was so distressed she called the cemetery where they had been open all along and accepting guess where? Yes from the co op? - got a date for burying ashes no advice from co op they said just go to the plot and while we waited a council lady strolled over with my dads urn in a paper carrier bag. Absolutely horrified is this what co op think is a dignified end of life? Why did they not contact us to collect we have never done this before we are not the specialists they are ?.... the cremation hole was to small for the urns just stuck out what an ending they did not get the correct measurements over.
The co op also could not perform some services due to covid understandable, they offered a half refund ?. Paid in full years ago why was that not our fault? I had to insist they gave my mum her money back. After a while they agreed. Said it would take two months. After a few weeks we realised they had not taken any bank details. Rang back oh yes!, now we will process. Office staff  are either not trained correctly or in the wrong job. 

soolin

I think it depends on the branch. My father’s funeral was exactly as planned, I used the office nearest to me (branch A)  my sister and I could call in when we wanted to make minor changes, everything was double checked with us, the staff on the day were wonderful.

When my mother died we phoned branch A and they referred us to the local branch near the hospice (branch B )  but they wouldn’t answer the phone. The hospice were pushing us to give details of the Company we wanted to use and in desperation I phoned branch A again and they spoke to the hospice and gave them all the details of Branch B. We thought everything would be OK after that but it got worse.

branch B never answered the phone, several times branch A had to contact someone at home to call us back, on one occasion we drove nearly an hour for a pre arranged meeting only to find a closed office, and had to wait for another hour for branch A to track someone down.

They sent us to the registry office for an appointment to register the death , only to find it was closed . They kept referring to my mother in conversations by the wrong name , on one occasion our liaison lady turned up to a meeting wearing bright floral clothes and was totally disinterested in the arrangements we were trying to make.

a few days before the funeral the vicar called us to say the crematorium had no booking for us, and we nearly had to cancel and re arrange, Co Op said that was the crematoriums fault , but vicar suggested otherwise.

it was so bad that we checked with the cream the day before just to reassure ourselves. We also checked with branch B to confirm time for the cars and they had arranged them for the wrong time mistakenly booking them for a 12 o clock funeral when ours was 11am.

We tried complaining afterwards but were half hearted about it as my sister was so upset by the whole thing and in the end we let it drop. 

rockiedog

I too had a bad experience with the Co-op funeral services.
Back in 2006 I took some of my Mother's ashes to a branch in Surrey, they were divided up between me and my siblings, to be placed in a wooden box with a plaque.
After a few weeks of not hearing back from them, I rang them up and my Mother's ashes were still on a shelf in a back room.  They had been totally forgotten about. 
They hadn't done anything with them.   I was so distraught.
I won't go anywhere near that company again.

kazzah

My late brother pre paid and planned his own funeral some years before he died with our local co-op - they were exemplary carried out my brothers requests to the letter and even helped me to source a celebrant for the service at the crematorium .   The whole event was lovely ( if you can call a cremation lovely) my late brother had only requested one funeral car and when I asked for an additional one, he also stated no flowers ( he was a VERY pragmatic and non sentimental person)  I was upset at the thought of his coffin with no flowers, so they allowed me to source some flowers for the coffin - I know that this wasn't really anything to do with their preferences, but they could have stuck to the letter of my late brothers wishes and said "no he didn't want flowers" but they could see that i was very upset thinking of his coffin with NOTHING on it going into the chapel, so they reassured me that it was my choice ( they were gaining nothing financially from this decision as I sourced my own florist independently) they were very caring and considerate - I suspect it is like most companies, there are good caring staff and some who don't care- but we have used the Co op for my late father, mother and brother now and had excellent service from them on all 3 occasions which have been spread over a 38 year period .

Mrs_Ryan

We had my dad’s funeral with the Co-op and it mostly went well. They screwed up on the embalming though which really upset my mum and they gave her a hefty refund. Our liaison gentleman though was fantastic- he was the funeral director in charge on the day and nothing was too much trouble for him- he even found me tissues and water to clean my muddy boots before I got back into the car to go to the wake. He was also constantly on the phone to Mum checking everything was okay with her.