Complaints

This profile includes complaints for Baalmann Mortuary, Inc.'s headquarters and its corporate-owned locations. To view all corporate locations, see Find Local Branches.

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  Baalmann Mortuary, Inc.

  304 E 8th St Oakley, KS 67748-1402

• 

  Baalmann Mortuary, Inc.

  190 S Franklin Ave Colby, KS 67701-3318

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  Baalmann Mortuary, Inc.

  PO Box 204 Oakley, KS 67748-0204

• 

  Baalmann Mortuary, Inc.

  109 N 2nd St Atwood, KS 67730-1801

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:11/27/2023

  Type:Billing 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 grandmother passed in November 2023, Baalmanns was called by the nursing home to pick up. They refused to give prices for cremation until after they transported, they charged over $200 to transport a mile and a half. They pushed to cremate 2 days after her passing, even though the law is to hold for 3 days before cremation, and wanted to charge over $200 per day to hold past 2 days. They lied to my mom about costs, and out-of-state licensing requirements to transport to Colorado for cremation that was covered already under my grandmother's funeral policy, taking advantage of her grief, and making it sound like she had no other choice. On top of the lies and deceit, they were trying to charge almost $4000 for the cremation of my 75lb grandmother, when the average price is 1,200- 1,500. Absolute horrible place!!

  Business Response

  Date: 11/29/2023

  We are sorry the family was not satisfied with the services they received. Because we worked with the mother of the complainant and had no contact with the complainant directly, it makes it harder to understand her claims. If we had been contacted directly by the complainant, we could have clarified some of the misinformation it seems she received.
  
  The first offense she claimed was that we refused to give prices. We never refuse to give the price. If the family had asked, which they didn’t, we would have discussed pricing at the time of the removal. We typically do not show up to pick up the deceased and immediately discuss the cost as that would be insensitive. Anyone can call the funeral home or ask for the price in person, and we will give it to them. As soon as the daughter walked into the arrangement room at the funeral home she was given a General Price List that details all our charges.
  
  The complainant didn’t like the cost to transport the decedent to the funeral home. We charge a set fee, as stated on our General Price List, to transfer remains to the funeral home within a 45-mile radius. While it may seem unfair to the person whose family member dies at the nursing home just down the road from us, if they were to die at home, 45 miles from us we would have charged the same fee.
  
  Regarding the push to cremate within two days, this is false. We did not cremate the decedent until three days after her passing. While standard practice is to wait at least 24 hours, Kansas has no law regarding this.
  
  We are unsure of where the complainant got the idea that we charge $200 to hold past 2 days. As stated in our General Price List, the Care and Custody charge of $150 per day does not get charged until after four days. For cremation, this would only be charged, if requested by the family, to hold the body additional days after all appropriate paperwork is completed and cremation can take place. The Care and Custody charge was never discussed with the family as it was not necessary, so we are unsure of why this seems to be an issue.
  
  The complainant also said we lied to her mom about costs and out of state licensing requirements for transport to Colorado. We discussed the cost of this with her mother and offered to get the out of state transit permit ready for her. We stated that on average most funeral homes charge around $3.00 per mile to transport. After discussing her options, the mother decided it would be more cost effective to have us do the cremation. The decedent did have a burial policy with a funeral home in Colorado that the daughter told us about. However, she stated the policy was only enough to cover the cost of the memorial service and burial there and she would have to pay for the cremation herself. We did not pursue it further and took the daughter’s word on this.
  
  The complainant felt we took advantage of her mother’s grief and gave her no other choice but to use us. While she may have felt she had no options price wise, she did call around to several other funeral homes to get pricing. In the end she chose to stay and use our services as our prices were right in line with the other local funeral homes. While the complainant was upset at the cost to cremate her 75 lb grandmother, our cremation fee is the same for all individuals regardless of how much they weigh. The complainant stated that the average price of cremation is $1,200- 1,500. However, according to Forbes the nationwide average price is $1,000 to $3,000. In general, you can get cremation done cheaper in larger cities. This is because of the volume of cremations they do. When a crematory in a large city does thousands of cremations a year, they can distribute the cost of the crematory, building, insurance, utilities, cost of employees, etc. over those thousands of cremations. In rural Kansas, where we do nowhere near the number of cremations they do a year, we have to distribute those same costs over roughly 200 cremations vs their thousands, so it is going to cost more.
  
  To conclude, we do try to make each family we serve happy. In this instance the family member we worked with directly thanked us for our service when everything was completed and thanked us for explaining things to her and working with her. Unfortunately, her daughter, as a third party, seemed to have a different experience, but as we had no contact with her, there was little we could have done to change her experience.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 11/29/2023

  
  Complaint: ********
  
  I am rejecting this response because: Funeral home states they gave my mother prices up front. My mother asked for prices upon pick up, and was told that they weren't "comfortable" discussing prices at that time, claiming it to be an insensitive time. Prices were not given until the day after, including the price to transport. Regardless of the distance, price to transport should have been given before transport. 

     Funeral home has stated they cremated my grandmother 3 days after her passing, this is false! My grandmother passed on Thursday and was cremated TWO days after on Saturday, which the funeral home kept pushing for, stating my mother would be charged for every day after 2 days, not 4, as they are trying to claim. This did not give my mother ample time to find my grandmothers fully paid for funeral policy, which was found on Saturday morning. Even though their price list supposedly says charge would be $150 per day after initial period, my mother was told it would be $200 per day after 2 days, not 4. This push for a quick cremation, and threat of additional charges, did not allow my mother ample time to arrange transport to Colorado. Funeral home is claiming it was never discussed.

     Regarding the costs and licensing requirements, the funeral home told my mother the cost was higher than they actually were to make it seem that the cost would be the same to transport when including embalming, certificates, transport, and mileage. Again, had the funeral home given my mother the 3 days required, or been up front about other options, the cost would have been significantly minimized, as my grandmothers funeral policy covered preparation, transport, and mileage only charged after the first 60 miles. Funeral home did not disclose to my mother that they could also have released my grandmothers remains to the family after death report had been filed, so that we could transport her ourselves. Also a much less expensive option, even including costs of licensing and required vehicle. The cost estimate the funeral home gave my mother were grossly exaggerated and misleading.

     While, at first, my mother could only find information on the memorial service and burial site, the full burial policy was found soon after, but was then partially moot because funeral home pushed my mother to agree to services before giving her a chance to find the fully-paid for policy. The average price nationwide is closer to $1,500 than $3,000, but funeral home was still trying to charge $3,800 for cremation. Well over the national average. Even so, crematory stated prices were so high due to them having an on-site crematory. This should result in charging less, not more, because it eliminated the cost of transport to the crematory by the funeral home.

     In their response, funeral home has told numerous lies here, and given many more misleading and false statements about what was said between them and my mother. Even as I had provided my contact information, no attempt at contacting me, or resolving this issue has been made by Baalmaans.

  
  Sincerely,
  
  ****** ******

  Business Response

  Date: 12/01/2023

  We don't feel like this person should be allowed to file a complaint against us. We never worked with her or spoke to her. We worked with her mother and resolved the issue she had prior to the complaint being filed. She was initially upset about the price because she didn't realize how much cremation actually cost. However, once she called around and got pricing from other local funeral homes she realized our price was average. We spoke with her, resolved her complaints and gave her a discount for the services she requested to help her out financially. In the end she thanked us and said everything was great. After receiving the complaint from the daughter we did reach out to the mother (who was our client) to make sure everything was okay because we were shocked to get the complaint. She was very satisfied and was appalled her daughter filed a complaint since she had no part in the transaction. While we do take the complainant's grievances to heart, they are not the reflection of the family member we worked with. We will not be responding to her further in this instance because we feel it would not be in our best interest to argue with someone who we did not do business with.