Pinelawn Memorial Park

Revdex.com:I Spoke with one of the owners, she called the vendor and is having the scroll expedited. She will get back to me with an exact day.  She is also having the vendor remake the bronze for my grandmother's grave.
I have reviewed the response made by the business in...

reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me and the matter has been resolved.
Sincerely,
[redacted]

A very close friend of mine passed away who I drove a long way to see at pinelawn. The place is like a wolf in sheep's clothing, absolutely beautiful grounds, the workers are typical of this world and society, arrogant, in a hurry and nasty. As soon as I got the park I was trying to figure out where to go, huge confusing place, and instead of the man at the entrance near security gate guiding me with courtesy, he is yelling at me, that I am blocking his funeral. I guess this is the way of the world and you can't even find a sense of warmth and peace when your about to watch your friend in a pine box get buried. All business, no sense of humanity and public relations. Very very sad. Shame on you Pinelawn!

I hope this information will be useful to anyone considering purchasing a plot at this cemetery. A cemetery’s ability to accommodate a burial during bad weather is something my family didn’t think of when we purchased our plot.
This past March my family had to bury my father. Making a bad situation worse, the lack of planning and effort on the part of Pinelawn cemetery, our burial party had to trudge through mud to get to the grave site and stand in the rain for the service. The cemetery's excuse for not accommodating us with, at the least, a "roadside canopy"(of which they have!) was blamed on the prior severe winter. That explanation doesn't sit well with me, because the weather that week had been very mild where nearly all of the snow on the ground had melted and weather reports predicted rain the day of his burial. They had several days to prepare the site!
Some time later, my mother and I did eventually sit down with management to air our grievance. We received nothing but a cold and hollow apology blaming it again on the prior severe winter. He demonstrated a complete lack of compassion.
It is my understanding that this cemetery has been in operation since 1902 and the manager we spoke with started there in 1979. I find it inconceivable that in all that time they have not established a plan to suitably accommodate a burial party during bad, weather and/or ground situations.
In my opinion a hallmark of good management is to prepare for any contingency; Pinelawn Memorial Park Cemetery is poorly managed.
The only bright spot that day was the military send-off my father received; the honor guard conducted their ceremony flawlessly, the whole time in the rain, "God bless our military".

Review: I am not quite sure of the exact date that a single plot was purchased, but it was cancelled sometime in 2004.I was making the monthly payments up until the time my mother became very ill during the latter part of 1999 or early 2000.I then became her sole caretaker until the time of her death in 2004.I was then laid off from my job and was forced to move.I found employment,started paying off my mothers debts and had no other choice but to stop payment on the single plot that I had purchased. Time goes by, as it usually does and I was then diagnosed with [redacted] and lost my job due to the diagnosis.I fought the disease, found employment again and was recently laid off due to company dissolution.I will be relocating to Florida in 01/** to live with relatives as I can no afford to stay in NY. I received a flyer in the mail in late August from Pinelawn and wondered what became of the monies that were paid to them.I contacted the office on Friday, 08/**/13, and was told $1660 out of $2845 was paid on the plot. The office informed me that I could place that balance towards the purchase of another plot since the original plot had since been sold. I was also informed that should I request a refund, I would be liable for 20% to be paid to Pinelawn in the amount of $569 for maintenance on the plot that had since been sold.I cannot understand why I was never contacted within 9 years to discuss the monies that were still in this account or the possibility of transferring those funds to purchase another single plot.Had I not contacted the customer service department about this inquiry, Pinelawn never would have contacted me and would have kept said monies.I wrote two letters to Pinelawn before they contacted me about this issue on 09/**/13. I was told I would receive a check in the amount of $1091 within 10 days but they would hold $569 in the event I change my mind at a later date to be put towards the purchase of another plot.I am not coming back to NY.I request a FULL refund.Desired Settlement: Request a refund in the amount of $1660.Pinelawn has kept my money long enough and has earned interest on my money to make up for the loss.I am relocating to another state and have no use for a plot in Pinelawn Cemetery. I was to receive a check in 7 to 10 days following a phone conversation on 9/** and have still not received anything.If I do not get a positive response, I will contact Consumer Affairs and the news media.

Business

Response:

Regarding the complaint (#[redacted]) of [redacted]:

[redacted], as she states in her complaint (1st attachment), became delinquent in the payments on her account (2nd attachment) in 2002, eventually leading to cancellation of the account in 2004, after repeated notices to her over that time. Prior to cancellation, Pinelawn mailed a “Certified Checklist #4” letter (the last of a series of delinquent notices) on 6/*/2003 prior to cancellation, which was returned to Pinelawn unclaimed (7/*/2003). Not only was her address invalid at that time, but Pinelawn could find no listing of a phone number, and the $1660 she had paid in to the account was fully retained by Pinelawn as there was no current, valid address for her, and no address change received.

As [redacted] also states, she contacted Pinelawn 8/**/2013 after receiving one of our promotional flyers at her new address, [redacted], asking for a full refund. We advised her that under the terms of the contract (3rd attachment), she would be entitled to a refund beyond 20% of the contract price*. She argued the point with a [redacted], who read to her paragraph 11 of Pinelawn’s contract. After that call, she received a refund equal to the excess paid in to her account beyond 20% of the contract price, as follows:

Contract price = $2845

Amt. paid in = $1660

20% of price = $569

Difference = $1091 = amount refunded to [redacted], mailed to her new address on 10/**/2013.

Note: The $569 amount retained by Pinelawn is still available to [redacted] as a credit toward a new purchase, but is not refundable.

*Regarding the 20% retention versus the 30% figure listed in para. 11 of [redacted]’s contract: Some time after 1995, Pinelawn lowered the retention amount on contracts cancelled due to delinquency from 30% to 20%. However as a matter of practice, Pinelawn has applied the 20% figure to all cancelled delinquent accounts since that time, as a matter of practice. So, in effect, [redacted] actually received $284 more of a refund than she would have, had Pinelawn not adopted the practice of applying the 20% retention amount to all cancelled delinquent accounts.

Sincerely,