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:08/19/2022

  Type:Customer Service 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.

  We lost our baby daughter on April 13th. We chose Restland specifically because we had heard good things & decided to have our daughter cremated here. We chose VERY WRONG! When picking up my daughter's ashes, my boyfriend also brought documents given to him about her cremation home, he waited for me before he went through them. I went through them and found that that had given us information on an elderly woman & NOT our daughter. In a state of complete shock I went up and returned those documents. I was lead down the hall, through two funerals taking place, to the place where they cremated my daughter, to meet the man that cremated my daughter. He said he was "so sorry" & said these are the correct documents & then locked the door. The same elderly woman's documents were STILL in with my daughter's. We have been waiting to receive our baby daughter's death certificate since April. It has been 4 months! I have called every day for the past week & asked that the manager Derick call me back, he never did. Finally yesterday 8/18 I got him on the phone. He decided to get loud with me & tell me that it is the state's fault for the delay and not there's. He said that they "corrected their error that they made" (meaning giving us the wrong documents). He said that he doesn't know why it is taking so long. I called and spoke to the state & found out Restland caused the delay. Magically, her death certificate appeared overnight. I went up there to pick it up & there is WRONG information on her death certificate!!! Including the time she was delivered!!! I am BEYOND upset and blown away that a company & people in this line of work have ABSOLUTELY no care & are allowed to do this to people who are grieving. We just lost our baby....how dare you!! They just keep adding insult to injury over and over again. I am waiting on a call from the manager Derick to tell me how they will "correct this error." Derick called & blamed the state & the doctor. I want owner to contact me!!!

  Business Response

  Date: 10/12/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2022/08/24) */ First and most important please accept my sincerest condolences on the loss of your daughter. In reviewing your complaint I will go through each issue and offer the facts and explanations to you in hopes of a better understanding of the process. The release of the incorrect documents to you on a different deceased is purely accidental and for that, I take ownership of that mistake and will address accordingly with our staff. I also, once again offer my sincerest apology for this mistake as it was truly human error. I can assure you that there was no malicious intent involved in this mistake. It is described that you were led down the hall and through two funerals taking place to where the cremation of your daughter was performed. I would like to explain that the hallway that you were led down in order to access our care center where the cremation took place is a public hallway. On one side of the hallway is our funeral chapel and on the other side of the hallway are several rooms. It is common for foot traffic to go through this hallway daily and NOT enter or interrupt any funeral service that may be happening in our chapel. Basically, this hallway goes through the middle of our building and connects our entrances. In order to go through a funeral service you would have to actually enter our chapel through one of its doors. Please clarify if this is the case. It is mentioned that the individual that cremated your daughter stated he was "so sorry" and said "these are the correct documents". Once again, I want to stress my apologies to you for this human error and assure you that I will address this issue. However, can you please clarify something so that I can gain a better understanding? Were you in fact given the correct documents for your daughter? And if so, did they just simply not retrieve from you the incorrect documents? In reference to the door being locked. I would like to explain that the building that we perform cremations in, also referred to as our Care Center is a building that is not accessible to the public. For various reasons obviously, but only employees have access to this building. With the level of integrity and out of respect to our trusted families that have loved ones in our care, every door on this building locks automatically when closed and is only accessible via codes. In reference to the death certificate. I would like to point out that upon each call you have made to Restland, it is my understanding that you have spoken with someone that is involved in the process of death certificate entry and processing. I acknowledge that you did speak with Deric on August 18, 2022. In the presence of two witnesses, Deric explained to you on the phone that the incorrect information that was entered on the death certificate was at the fault of the delivering doctor. It was also explained that Restland does not have access to the medical fields of entry on the death certificate which means that Restland could not have made the incorrect entry as the only individual that can enter information in this area of the death certificate is in fact the doctor. This does not place blame on anyone however it does conclude the fact that Restland cannot and did not enter the incorrect information on the certificate. At the time of this conversation on August 18, 2022 Deric states that he does not know why the state is taking so long to get the certificate back to Restland so we can release to you. Deric is just being transparent in his comment. He also promised to look into this matter, seek answers and provide you updates as they come available. You mention that you spoke with the state and the state advises you that Restland caused this delay. Can you please elaborate and give me information on the cause of the delay that the state may have provided? I ask this because when filing a fetal death certificate, the funeral home and funeral director has very little input on the entry of information. Once the funeral home enters their information, the process then becomes the responsibility of the doctor to complete the death certificate. In reference to the death certificate being incorrect and once again, the funeral home does not enter the time of delivery on the certificate....the physician enters this info. Once the incorrect info is entered, it is up to the physician to correct that info as the funeral home has no access to that part of the process. At this point in time, we have learned that the doctor was able to edit and correct the delivery time. However, we have also learned that the neither the doctor nor funeral home can correct the birthplace of the mother remotely. The process now is for the funeral home to request the state to change the place of birth on their level and we have made that request. With that said, we are once again at the mercy of the state to make this correction. Once we have knowledge that this correction has been made we will go in person and obtain the corrected copies from Dallas County and we will deliver these to you. In closing I would like to echo the conversation that was between you and our owner and that is we are truly doing everything that we can to remedy this situation and we sincerely apologize for the mistake on the documents and I can assure you that we do care and once we get the corrected death certificate from the physician, we will deliver.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:06/09/2022

  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.

  Before my husband (Ron) passed away he said he wanted to be cremated. He was diagnosed with Dementia so we never went back to Restland to see how we could convert policy to cremation. on 01/04/22 I called and spoke to Anthony at Restland and told him we had a prepaid funeral policy and my husband wanted to be cremated and could the policy convert to a cremation and he said there would be a fee of $630.00. On 02/06/22 Ron passed away and when Restland came to pick his body up the gentleman asked if Ron was to have a funeral or be cremated and I told him cremated, so he wrote cremated on his sheet of paper. On 03/01/22 when we had meeting with Restland to discuss Ron's arrangements everything was going fine until Lakisha went to ask a question and she came back and stated Restland couldn't cremate Ron, so we left and went elsewhere. I spoke to John on 03/24/22 to see what I needed to do to get the $3818.00 each that was paid for our prepaid funeral services. He said I had to write 2 letters (one for each one of us) to the business office. John mentioned that i would have to pay a 10% maintenance fee at that time. I called the Texas Department of Banking, Special Audits Division toll free number listed on the form several times, but no one returned my calls. I would like to know what the 10% maintenance fee is for. Is it for (staples, tape, etc.). Why am I being charged the 10% when no one ever mentioned this or a withdrawal contract to us at the beginning when we signed up for the policy. This is why I turned to the Better Business Bureau to help me receive the full amount of $3818.00 that was paid for each policy. It has been a difficult time for our entire family and this needs to be resolved.

  Business Response

  Date: 08/01/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2022/06/14) */ Thank you for your inquiry with the BBB. First, and most important I convey our sincere condolences on the recent loss of your husband. I also wish to extend an apology for the fact that you had to utilize another funeral provider due to the fact that we are bound by law to follow the express written wishes of the decedent as to what type of disposition they prefer. In this instance, we had in our possession a funeral trust that was for your husband that clearly stated that at the time of purchase he had a desire for burial. We are not allowed to change the disposition once a funeral trust is executed....meaning since we had a trust with the decedent that obligated us to provide burial services for, we are not able to change from burial to cremation. In order for any funeral home to change the disposition, the beneficiary of the trust must present a written request that they are desiring to change their own disposition from what they initially pre-arranged. In this instance, we would have had to had in our files the written request from your husband declaring that he acknowledged that he had a pre-arrangement for burial but he had changed his mind and now desires cremation upon his death. We did not have that declaration therefor we could not offer cremation. In reference to the retention of the 10% upon cancelling the trust, that is the legal allowable amount that the Texas Dept. of Banking acknowledges that the funeral provider who executed the trust is allowed to keep upon cancellation. Funeral homes are allowed to retain this amount. This verbiage is found on the contract that was provided at the time of purchase and is under the terms and conditions of the contract under the "Cancellation" segment of the terms. I would also like to make aware that you too have a pre-arranged funeral contract with Restland and should you desire that upon your death to be cremated, I would highly recommend that you meet with us in advance to execute your change of disposition to cremation. By doing that, you will save the unnecessary hassle of paying out of pocket for a cremation to another funeral provider. Consumer Response /* (3000, 7, 2022/06/15) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) Thank you for responding to my complaint. I am not disputing the fact that I had to take my husband (***) elsewhere to get him cremated due to his wishes. I understand Restlands policy on the pre-arranged funeral contract, but if you will look at the documents I previously sent to you that is not what I was told when I called and inquired about your cremation policy. Restland explained that portion of the policy to us and I understand completely. What I am disputing is the 10% Restland is charging me for mine and ***'s pre-arranged funeral service for withdrawal of contract. You stated that this verbiage was provided to us at the time of purchase of policy and is under the terms and conditions of the contract under "cancellation". We never received such contract as you stated when we signed up back in 1991. I have sent you a copy of every document we received when we signed up and there was no such contract given to us back then in 1991. I DO NOT want to be cremated at Restland (please see my letter that was sent also to you). Per John all I had to do was send a letter to the Business Office for me and ***'s pre arranged funeral service that we paid $3818.00 for to be refunded. This is when I received information from Charles Clark dated 03/20/2022 to fill out on cancellation and application for withdrawal of prepaid funeral contract along with a letter dated 03/30/2022 stating that Restland Funeral Home will retain 10% for each paid in amount which is $381.80 each. This is the VERY first time I have every heard of the 10% fee was on 03/20/22. This has been sent to before and I am sending to you again. I want to know why you can say I received it before when I did not. I only received this information when I decided to cancel which is unfair business practice. I have documentation to prove it. Please look at the documentation I have sent to you twice. It proves I didn't have what you said I did. Thank You Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2022/06/18) */ I have attached our copy of the agreement that was executed 10/19/1991 between Restland and Mr. ********. On the second page I have drawn attention to the segment of the contract that discusses cancellation. In this description it describes the process of the seller computing the amount that is paid to purchaser upon cancellation. The funeral home and or seller is entitled to retain 10% of the paid in amount upon cancellation. In this particular instance, Restland has managed and complied with annual audits of this trust since 1991. With that said, that is why funeral homes retain the allowable 10% of the funds as they have handled and managed the trust. I do humbly and sincerely apologize for your feelings of frustration however, the retention of the allowable amount by Restland is within the law and standards of the industry. I am interested in gaining info on the individual named John that you spoke with. Do you have a last name of this individual as I am not familiar with any John that works within our administrative department. Consumer Response /* (4200, 11, 2022/06/22) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) Thank you for your response. *** and I did not get a copy of this contract agreement for our records that was executed on 10/9/1991 and I don't know why it was not provided to us back then by Alfred N****. The paragraph you have marked for me to read states nothing about the 10% fee. The way I read the contract agreement it states the Purchaser (which is *** and I) if we should desire to cancel this agreement PRIOR to maturity and make no further payments to the SELLER (restland),which we did not do, the Purchaser may do so by giving fifiteen (15) days notice in writing to the Seller and the Department. My letter was written to the Business Office on 03/24/2022 per instructions letting you know I wanted to cancel both mine and ***'s funeral policy. Again nO mention of 10% fee. You stated the 10% you are charging is due to annual audits of trust since 1991 and is within the law and standards of the industry. My question is also what do you do with the interest that you receive from all the years this money has been in that trust ? You stated that you were interested in gaining information on the individual named John that I spoke with. I do not have his last name unfortunately. It took me several calls to Restland before the lady at the front desk finally said if you can hold on I will get you to someone that can help you with your question, and that is when I spoke to John. He must work there because he is the first person to tell me I needed to write 2 letters (one for each one of us) to the Business Office to have our funeral policy cancelled. John is also the one that also mentioned to me over the phone that there would be a 10% maintenance fee is what he called it and that was the first time I had heard about the 10% fee. I didn't get his last name and I should have. It is like responding to you I don't have a clue what your name is (first or last). Yes, you are right I am frustrated with Restland. My entire family feels like Restland has not been very compassionate to our feelings at all. When *** passed away on 02/06/22 Restland kept his body in cold storage until 03/01/22 which they said was due to COVID. I had a friend pass away right after *** and a week later the funeral was done. That doesn't make sense. I called up to Restland several times to get an explanation to why ***'s body was being held in cold storage and the ladies at the desk said someone would call me back, but no one ever did. I even tried to get a hold of Jasmine Washington just to see if she could help me and she was either in a meeting or not there. Where is your EMPATHY!!!Restland has not been very compassionate from the beginning. I am not sending any attachments this time since I have sent them to you before and you should still have them. Thank You ***** ********