PITTSBURGH (TNS) — Federal investigators went fully undercover recently, dialing up funeral parlors across the country in a covert operation to see if they were being honest and open about their prices.

The Federal Trade Commission’s first undercover telephone sweep uncovered dozens of violations of the Funeral Rule, and the agency sent warning letters to 39 funeral homes nationwide as a result.

Turns out, not all funeral homes are playing fair when it comes to giving grieving families straightforward answers, according to the FTC.

Investigators found that many “funeral homes failed to provide accurate pricing information or failed to give out price information entirely,” the agency said in a statement announcing the operation.

No Pittsburgh funeral homes were on the list.

However, five funeral parlors from the Philadelphia metro area were served with warning notices.

The ‘Funeral Rule’

Jay Sperling, owner of Sperling Funeral Home in McCandless, said pricing is the most closely guarded information in the funeral industry.

“Funeral directors get worried about their competitors finding out what their prices are,” Sperling said, adding that his company posts prices for all its products and services online.

He said he doesn’t understand why funeral directors are so sensitive about sharing their prices when they are required to give that information to anyone who calls or comes through the front door.

“One of the local corporate funeral homes in Pittsburgh sends out a student once a year to every funeral home in the area,” Sperling said. “She comes to the front door and she says, ‘I need your general price list.’

“And you have to give it to her,” he said. “They just want to compare everyone’s prices to see where theirs are at.”

The Funeral Rule requires that funeral homes tell people over the telephone about the services they offer, their prices and accurate information from their price lists.

Inconsistent pricing info

Throughout 2023, FTC investigators placed undercover calls to more than 250 funeral homes across the country to try to obtain price information.

Staff determined that 39 of the funeral homes violated the Funeral Rule on these calls.

According to the FTC, on 38 of the calls, funeral homes either refused to answer questions about pricing at all, or provided inconsistent pricing for identical services.

On one of those calls, the funeral home also misrepresented that the local health code required remains to be embalmed if more than a certain number of people wanted to view the remains. It was not actually required by the local health code, the FTC said.

“Embalming is a process of preserving a body after death,” the agency said. “Most states do not require a body to be embalmed, and the few states that require embalming only do so in limited circumstances, such as if refrigeration is not available.”

On another call, the funeral home promised to send a General Price List, which is required to include important disclosures and itemized services. Instead, it provided only a list of package prices that did not meet the Funeral Rule requirements, the FTC said.

A need for online pricing

Consumer groups had for years led the charge on calling for expanded protection of people making funeral arrangements.

The Funeral Consumers Alliance and the Consumer Federation of America in 2016 filed a petition with the FTC seeking requirements be put in place for all funeral homes to fully disclose their prices for burial products and services on the web.

They argued that consumers have a right to consider their budgets in every purchase, including funerals.

In 2022, the average funeral costs between $7,000 and $12,000, according to Lincoln Heritage Life Insurance Co. based in Phoenix. The average cost of a funeral with cremation was $6,000 to $7,000. Costs do not include a cemetery plot, monument or marker.

The need for online pricing became clear during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many people either couldn’t or didn’t want to visit a funeral home to get a price list in person, the FTC said then. The FTC said its own research showed that more than 60% of funeral home websites had little or no pricing information at the time.