Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. 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.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:06/10/2025

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  ****** *********, my wife of 27 years, passed away on 2/28/2025 from complications of long illness including Covid, diabetes, kidney disease and heart disease. I am writing this, as recommended by *** from Wisc Investigates. He referred me to you. I am including this price list and a synopsis of a meeting with **** Saether, which took place the day after ***** passed. I was in shock after my loss and did not want to sign any paperwork. I asked for a simple cremation then they came to my house on March 5th and then I signed the papers. They said they only do 25 funerals a year, that they have taxes to pay, that they have the cost of the funeral home and the hall and four hearses. This is a cost they have of doing business. They had a deadline but I was still in shock. They have sent me multiple letters and I am overburdened and have had my own health issues. I feel like $2,000 would be more appropriate.

  Business Response

  Date: 06/20/2025

  Upon notification by Hospice of the death of the complainant's wife we immediately traveled 30 minutes to the hospital to take his wife into our care.  We were asked by Hospice to not contact him until morning.  In the morning we set a meeting with him and spent two hours talking with him discussing his options for what services he wanted.  He originally told us he wanted to have a service and that we did not need to worry about the cost, that his siblings were going to take care of the bill.  He was not ready to make final decisions, but we did ask him to sign our permission to remove from hospital form since that was already done after his request to Hospice to have us do that.  We did give him full cost options and estimates at that first meeting.  We were patient and compassionate with him, trying to help him through his decision making process.  We spoke with him several times over the next couple days.  The time did come two days later that he needed to make a decision because he had not wanted his wife embalmed and the time had come that we needed to proceed with the cremation.  I was at his home and he had me talk to his brother to explain our charges.  His brother consented and told him to sign the bill and permission to cremate so we could move forward.  The first bill he signed was with him requesting to have a memorial service at our facility.  A day later he changed his mind and asked for just a simple cremation with no services.  We transported his wife to the crematory and completed all necessary permits and death certificate.  We went to the crematory to take her cremated body into our care and placed it into the wooden urn we provide with the package he had purchased.  We visited him at his home and presented her cremated body to him.  Death certificates were mailed directly to him.  We worked through the process with him patiently and completed all requested tasks in good faith.  He was provided with the simple cremation that he asked for.  The original larger bill was replaced with a smaller bill for what he eventually told us he wanted.  Later in the day after we brought him the cremated body of his wife his sister called to say that our fees were much too high and that they wanted to "renegotiate" the bill now, after we had completed all our work.  His sister was busy with a golf outing in the days after his wife's death.  I was trying to contact her, but she did not respond.  I am sorry, but I see it as unjust for a family to ask for a renegotiation of a bill after all services have been completed.  Had they wanted to work with a different firm, we would have charged for the removal from the hospital and any work done at that time another firm took over.

  We are a very small business, and we do serve only 25 or so families a year in our little town.  We are not able to compete in price with discount disposal firms and still continue in business.  The comment of four hearses is a misunderstanding.  In order to continue serving our little community we operate four small businesses, one of them is a hearse rental service where we serve other funeral homes.  This business operates on its own standing and has no reflection or expense on our funeral service business other than helping us to continue to be in business in funeral service. 

  We contacted him by telephone five times with no answer or returned phone calls.  We mailed multiple bills and our attorney mailed a request that he contact us.  We did not hear from him.

  We did talk to him in person recently and patiently visited about the things that have happened in his life before and after his wife's death.  We are not badgering him for payment, but do need payment at some point in the future.  We hope to stay in touch with him and hopefully some day he will be able to pay our bill.  At this point we have not received any payment from him for over three months.

  A small business can not continue serving a small community unless their clients pay their bills so we can be here to serve the next client.  Our firm has been serving our village for 147 years and are now in our 6th generation from parent to child.