Here we go again. An Ohio funeral director, J. Jeffrey Fretti, recently died and his estate attorney reported that there are pre need funds missing to the tune of $180,000. Unfortunately this is a trend that seems to be continuing through out the United States. At least once a month we discover another incident of pre need funds missing in some form or other.

Sometimes it is massive as in Illinois and Missouri and Texas. Then there are the small ones like Mr. Fretti. Once again innocent families who were wise enough to pre plan will lose their money and their confidence in the industry. Unfortunately consumers have no way of knowing who the honest people are. Bernie Madoff was able to continue his ponzi scheme for years because he had the confidence of the people he was duping. The funeral industry is full of honest people, and yet there are a few who are not so honest. There is no way to know who is who. And circumstances and opportunity may put someone in a position to do things they would not normally consider. So the bottom line for consumers is to not trust any one in the industry. 

I still advocate that everyone should pre plan their funeral. I am also convinced that pre paying in any way is a very risky venture for consumers. The big shoe to drop will be if or when one of the public companies is discovered to either have mishandled funds or that there are not enough funds to provide for pre paid services. Hopefully that will never happen.