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In reply to the discussion: It says so much when a working family can't even afford to bury the dead [View all]LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)Many years ago, when my mother passed away, we expected that she would be buried in her mother's grave, as it was supposed to have been dug extra deeply in order to leave room for my mother in the future.
As it turned out, when the funeral home contacted the cemetery to make burial arrangements, the cemetery "discovered" that my grandmother's grave had not been dug extra deeply, even though my father had paid extra for it to be done.
My mother could not be buried with her mother as she had wished. At the last minute, my father had to spend more money to buy another burial plot some distance away, so that my mother could at least be buried in the same cemetery as her mother.
I had just finished an undergraduate course in consumer protection law at Rutgers University, and raised hell about this with the county government and NJ consumer affairs. They investigated it, but it came to nothing. Nobody was penalized or even reprimanded. I wouldn't be surprised if the owners of the cemetery leaned on some political pals or even passed along a little money to have the investigators called off the case. I was hoping that the cemetery would be forced to give my father a refund because it was their "mistake". I suspect it was done on purpose.