ComplaintsforNewcomer Funeral Home

• Initial Complaint

  01/09/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Unethical and Unprofessional conduct Newcomer Funeral Services LIES to customers. How does one put a price on family grief? Totally insensitive people! The Funeral Director of Newcomer Funeral Services took it upon herself to turn over information to the St Charles County Medical Examiner office without talking to the family. Evidently the funeral service saw that my wife had broke her hip 4 to 5 months before her death.  Suspecting that something might be amiss about my wife's death she turned over the case to the St Charles County Medical Examiner Office AND NEVER TOLD ME. Had she chose to talk to the family about the issue she would have found out that my wife was a falling down alcoholic. This action by the Funeral Director extended family grief, extended settlement of my wife’s estate, and the issuance of a Death Certificate from 3 to 4 days to 10 to 12 weeks. On initial meeting the Funeral Director told me that the Death Certificate would be signed by her doctors.  A week later the Funeral Director told me that the Death Certificate would be signed by the St Charles County Medical Examiner which struck me as very strange. Why would the Funeral Director lie to me?  I ask how long it would take to get the Death Certificate and was told that it would take 10 to 12 weeks. You cannot trust this business.

  Business response

  01/23/2023

  Newcomer Cremations, Funerals and Receptions strives to uphold our Core Values of Care, Trust Excellence and Growth. We understand the grief and hardships many of our families are facing during a difficult time and do our best to provide quality products and services.
  
  Death certificates are important documents, and we understand that families need these as soon as possible. Our goal is to get the death certificates to the family as quickly as possible but unfortunately, we do not control the timeframe in which these certificates are certified. This situation is one example of that.
  
  To better understand what happens I will explain the steps involved in the death certificate process.
  The funeral home is typically given a name of a physician to certify the death certificate from the healthcare professionals giving us notification of the death. We then confirm with the physician that the person is their patient, and they are willing to certify. We create the death certificate record in the State’s Vital Record system with demographic information provided by the family and send it to the physician to sign. Once all the demographic information is confirmed and the physician has signed/returned the record to the funeral home, then the funeral home releases it to the State of Missouri.
  
  Deaths are also reported to the County Medical Examiner by the hospital, nursing home, hospice nurse, police, or other responsible party. Based on this notification and other information they ask for. The medical examiner will either choose to examine the person, release to a funeral home and/or sign the death certificate.
  
  In this case, we were given the name of a physician to sign the death certificate and related that information to the family during the arrangement conference. A week later the medical examiner reached out to us to let us know that they were going to be taking over signing the death certificate. We informed the family that the medical examiner would be signing the death certificate and that it would delay getting the certificates, since it typically takes 8 – 12 weeks for them to sign and return the record to us.  In the state of Missouri, the medical examiner has the right to take over any case and sign the death certificate even if there is a willing physician.
  
  We sincerely apologize if we did not effectively communicate about the status of the death certificates and hope that our explanation helps you understand the process.  Please do not hesitate to contact me if there are additional questions.  

  Customer response

  01/25/2023

  Complaint: ********
  
  I am rejecting this response because:

  This is a boiler plate bs answer.  This process should have been explained during the initial meeting

  of *******r and the client.  This business has people assigned to positions that they are not capable

  of executing.  Poor management is all I can attribute the failure.  *******r has caused my family

  extreme hurt during a moment that should have brought the family closer but because of *******r

  bungling it was not.  I hope they go under.

  
  
  ********** ******* ****

• Initial Complaint

  03/24/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Our grandfather passed away on 02/20/2022, he will be transported to Mexico and this company is in charge of arranging this transport. They keep giving our family a runaround about the arrangements and claim they have contacted Mexico, but Mexico is saying they have not heard from them. Our family has traveled to Mexico to set up the arrangements, but this company is causing extended delays. Our grandfather deserves to rest in peace.

  Business response

  03/28/2022

  On March 25, 2021, Mr. ******** signed a cancellation request form requesting his GAP policy be cancelled with ***** ****** ***.  He provided a printout of an email from Capital One dated March 23, 2021, stating his auto loan was paid off in full.  A check was issued to Mr. ******** around March 25, 2021, for the refund amount of $148.22.

  On March 8, 2022, Mr. ******** signed a cancellation request requesting that his service contract be cancelled with ***** *****.  He provided an odometer disclosure statement as proof of him trading the vehicle into ****** **** *********** **** on March 22, 2022.  Service contracts cancelled with ***** ***** are refunded by check from ***** ***** directly.

  Ethos Group issued a check to Mr. ******** on March 10, 2022.  He claimed to have not issued a check to Mr. ******** for $929.28 on March 15, 2022.

  We are not sure what further issue the customer has, but we are happy to resolve any further issues the customer has.  We believe he has received the refund check.

  Business response

  04/01/2022

  To Dispute Resolution Department,

  On March 25, 2022, the ******** Funeral Service Group received the Better Business Bureau complaint (ID ********) from Daniel Sandoval concerning the transportation of ***** ****** to his final resting place in Mexico.

  I want to express our condolences to the family of ***** ****** for their loss and wish the arrangements for his transportation to Mexico had been more clearly communicated and expedited. Final transportation arrangements and documentation are now complete with the flight scheduled to depart on April 1, 2022.

  Coordinating transportation of a decedent to another country is challenging and requires working with multiple agencies, completing numerous documents and letters in multiple languages while ensuring country specific requirements are fulfilled. All these tasks must be done accurately and takes extra time to complete. We sincerely apologize if we did not effectively communicate with the family concerning the status of the travel arrangements and meet their expectations.

  Our hope is that this issue has been resolved. Please do not hesitate to contact me if there are additional questions at ***** ********.

  Respectfully,

  ***** ******

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩