La Paloma Cremation & Funeral Services

Failed to file paperwork, were negligent in the transportation of my father's ashes, and lied about mistakes made blaming everyone elseCompletely unprofessional. I was lied to repeatedly by the director [redacted]. I submitted the vital statistics sheet to them on June 17. I was told the paperwork for the death certificate was submitted to the Health Department and I should expect my copies in the mail by June 24. When I received nothing by that date I called them and asked for an update. I was told they would make a call and call me back. I never got a call back. Over the next 3 weeks I called them back 5 times and got the same line with promises to look into it and call me back, and never received a single call back. My father's cremation was scheduled for June 27 and I did not get any notification that I could pick up his remains until July 11. I was told he was at La Paloma's office and I could go pick him up. When I arrived just before 4 pm he still had not been picked up and brought back to their office. The next morning I picked him up just in time to have his remains present at the memorial service later that afternoon on July 12. When I opened the box which held his remains, the date of death was incorrect. After the memorial service I called them and said I wanted to talk to the director because this was all unacceptable. It took 3 hours for the director to call me back. After telling him about my complaints, [redacted] told me he had no control over the labeling of the urn, that was done by the crematorium. He also said he had no idea if his company or the crematorium was supposed to have delivered my father's remains to me. He then said he had no power over the Health Department and it was all their fault it took so long for the certificates. I called the Health Department and they told me the paperwork for the certificates had only been filed on July 12 (that's why it took him 3 hours to get back to me). So he lied about when they submitted the paperwork; it was La Paloma's mistake, not the Health Department's. I called the crematorium and they told me they do not label urns. So he lied to me about that as well. They said my father's remains had been available for pickup for almost 2 weeks and no one had come to get them despite telling La Paloma they were ready. Bottom line: they were incompetent, made repeated mistakes, blamed everyone else, and never once even apologized for their mistakes, they blamed everyone else and were lying about all of it.Desired SettlementI am requesting the Basic Services fee of $300 as well as the Other Preparation of the Body fee of $75 for a total of $375 be refunded due to incompetence and negligence as well as mental anguish.Business Response Contact Name and Title: [redacted] ManagerContact Phone: 7758273700Contact Email: [redacted]We filed paperwork in a timely manner and have proof of the dates of filing. He says the health department told him we filed on July 12th but we have the permit stamped June 27th saying otherwise. We went the extra mile for this Gentleman and he would not be happy no matter what we did. I did apologize that the experience was not satisfactory for him and explained that the health department can take a while to issue the death certificates especially after a holiday. It was out of our hands at that point and I explained that and gave him their number to verify. I highly doubt they told him otherwise as I have proof to the contrary. The cremation was not done by our office as requested by David as his father was a mason and wanted to be cremated by the masonic crematory. I brought his fathers body to them to cremate and then called David and told him to follow up with them with regards to picking up the remains. He failed to do that and wanted to blame all other parties involved. Masonic cremated for free and we charged a discounted rate to do the transportation and paperwork and yet he is still upset. We provided him the services contracted in a timely manner and I explained this to him many times. He seemed satisfied until I received the email about this complaint and the request for a refund.[redacted] Consumer Response (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)Devin may have filed the paperwork for the cremation on time but he did not file the paperwork for the death certificates until July 12. They did indeed tell me exactly that when I called them on either the 14th or 15th. Devin talked to me only 2 times throughout the entire process of dealing with his company; the original contact phone call and the complaint call. I never spoke to him at any point in between, only to his office staff and even then I never received any call back for any of those phone calls after being promised repeatedly that I would after they "checked into it". At no point was I told his remains were ready by anyone prior to the 11th. At no point was I told it was my responsibility to pick up his remains from the Masons. The understanding from the beginning was that my father would be taken care of and I would pick his remains up at their office.If I seemed satisfied after the complaint call it was because Devin's dismissive attitude and blaming everyone else for the errors indicated to me that he really didn't care and I didn't feel like pursuing the matter would make any difference. His reply proves my assumption. At this point, I would be willing to drop the Revdex.com complaint as long as the review of his business I submitted is posted on the Revdex.com website.