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Merrill Lynch & Co. has agreed to pay $18 million to end a state investigation into its investment services to a troubled trust fund managed by the Illinois Funeral Directors Association, the state insurance division said Wednesday.

The money will be used to help offset potential losses that funeral homes face in providing services to consumers who pre-paid for their funerals. More than 40,000 Illinois consumers own so-called pre-need contracts. But the trust fund that is supposed to pay for their funerals had a shortfall of more than $50 million last year.
State regulators have focused on Merrill Lynch’s role in the trust fund’s losses. Edward Schainker, a Merrill Lynch broker in Springfield, was the IFDA’s investment adviser starting in 1980 when the trade group created the trust to manage the consumer deposits.

The insurance division on Wednesday also revoked Schainker’s insurance license and ordered him to pay a $100,000 penalty, the maximum fine allowed under Illinois law. The secretary of state’s office also has suspended his broker’s license.

Schainker allegedly advised the IFDA to buy more than 300 life insurance policies because they offered investment returns that would be tax exempt, according to a complaint filed by the secretary of state’s office. A life-insurance division of Merrill Lynch issued 129 policies and has received more than $32 million in premiums, the complaint said.

Ha!

funeral scams

I don’t do the day to day stuff of a funeral director anymore, I spend most of my time writing and promoting ways for people to get the funerals they want and doing battle with the funeral industry.

However, I do like to keep my finger in and so I decided to catch up on some reading. I’m glad I did and I have to tell you I’m furious.

I take it for granted that funeral homes around the country are ripping people off left, right and centre but to have these practises backed up by the government has knocked the wind out of me.

The Federal Trade Commissions (FTC’s) “Funerals: A Consumer Guide” and the General Services Administartion (GSA’s) “2008 Consumer Action Handbook” tell families that a funeral, casket and vault will cost $6,000 - a RIP-OFF price promoted by the industry to deceive families to think that this is a fair price and be ready to by robbed by this much.

PRICE TRUTH: A FAIR price is about $3,000. The FTC and the GSA should have said that a fair price would be about $3,000. The false price has helped mortuaries throughout the U.S. to rob families of more than $3,000 each. $1,950 to $2,400 is a fair price for a complete funeral and beautiful casket.

All funeral homes claim “good reputation and honesty.”

However, nearly all funeral homes, including the best-known and those near you, overcharge (rip-off) most families $2,000 to $8,000 for huge profit. This rip-off totals $8-9 billion a year from 2 million families having funerals, causing serious financial and emotional harm.

Don’t let it happen to you! Get knowledgable and nip these guys in the bud. Our free guide to funerals will tell you all you need to know. As for the government…I’ll write Obama an email and let you know.

Funeral directors are turning down their thermostats, doing their own laundry and not buying new hearses, according to a new National Funeral Directors Association survey.

The reason: Funeral home revenues are weakening as more consumers opt for cremations, cheaper caskets, shorter viewing periods and cheaper wakes. Also suffering are trusts and stock funds in which funeral homes invest money from clients who prepay for their funeral arrangements.

New hearses often are the first cutback. They cost about $80,000, according to the association. The trade-in market for them is small and they get poor fuel economy.

Sheets and towels used to move bodies are increasingly laundered in-house, according to the new informal survey.

Consumers are spending less on funerals, too, mainly by switching from caskets to cremations.

Cremations rose 46 percent nationwide from 1997 to 2007, according to association figures. The switch to cremation, which represents from 24 percent to 35 percent of all funerals, has undercut the market in metal caskets. Funeral homes sell them for an average of around $2,250, according to the directors association.

Total U.S. funeral costs averaged $7,323 in 2006, according to the association’s latest figures, not counting cemetery and monument costs.

Fancy ornamental hardware sales are off, too, funeral directors say. Sheet metal urns are outselling copper and bronze ones. Mahogany-stained coffins are supplanting solid mahogany ones.

Still, funeral home directors can anticipate rising demand. The current U.S. death rate of 8 per 1,000 per year is projected to rise to 9.3 by 2020 and 10.9 by 2040.

With the funeral homes tightening their belts please take a copy of our free funeral guide to make sure you know all the pitfalls and tricks to look out for.

The Internet site laptopsdirect.co.uk has come up with a rather novel way of advertising, laptopsdirect.co.uk will actually now help you with the cost of funerals, just by letting them advertise at the funeral.

With all the economic problems the world is having at the moment the unexpected cost of a funeral could be crippling, for some people who are not prepared for such a eventuality. The average cost of a basic funeral is about £5000 and that’s if you’re lucky! Laptopsdirect.co.uk are trying to help people by sponsoring funerals, by allowing laptopsdirect.co.uk to put their logo on certain elements of a funeral, they will pay the cash for it. So for example if you were to have a coffin drape with the laptopsdirect.co.uk logo on it, that would intern earn you £100, if however there are 100 or more people at the funeral then, you could earn £200 the list of options is rather extensive.

The idea is certainly novel, other companies have been thinking of similar advertising campaigns, recently Durex have decided to become a sponsor for Christenings up and down the UK!

Personally I’d advice you to cut the cost of any funeral by getting our free guide to funerals

Ever wondered why most funerals are during the week?  Well it is common for prices to be higher at weekends and on holidays, that’s right those good ‘ol boys in the funeral homes never miss a trick!  Recently I read this little gem from the Salt Lake Tribune:

The cost of a weekend funeral at Logan’s city cemetery may be going up.

City officials are considering increasing the fee for funerals on Saturdays by $125. For locals, the cost to open and close the cemetery on those days would be $525. For non-residents, it would be $710.

Cemetery sexton Seth Sparks says the fee pays for digging the hole for the casket, covering the grave and preparing the area for a funeral ceremony. It also covers extra staff time for Saturday shifts.

It makes you wonder doesn’t it?  As funeral homes along with other businesses across the country report their customers cutting back and making sure that they get each last cents worth out of every dollar, is this the way they are going to claw back the money they are losing?  You bet!  This and whatever else their fevered brains can rustle up to sting the unwary.  Well do you know what I say to that? Don’t be the unwary!  Stick with us on BuryorBurn and we’ll make sure you are as wary as they come!