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Requesting a funeral is often an added strain for grieving survivors, and it’s not made easier by the fact that agencies’ pricing offer is often complicated and confusing. TV 2 has shown you before that prices for exactly the same funerals can vary widely.
Surcharge gave triple price
When Asker’s Veslemøy Ree Fosse (75) lost her husband this fall, she did what many do, using an agency that some acquaintances had used. They said a package price of around 26,000 kroner and they arrived the same day you called.
But at the meeting at Veslemøy’s house, the low price quickly turned into something else entirely.
– When I saw the photo of the coffin, I said that the coffin is not pretty, says Ree Fosse.
– No, of course they recommended another one, and it cost ten thousand more crowns. And then there were various surcharges, and then there was the driving, and they had so much more in everything.
When the agency representative summed up at the end of the meeting, the price had risen to around 77,000 kroner.
– It turned out that they really wouldn’t recommend anything that was in the package deal, says Veslemøy Ree Fosse. He immediately thought that this couldn’t be true, but found it difficult to protest right there.
– It was a strain talking about it two days after my husband died, but in reality I felt cheated, she says.
Avoid lure prices
Veslemøy Ree Fosse decided to take on the burden of saying no to the first agency. Instead, he ended up at Verd Funeral Home. Verd is a sister company to low-cost airlines like Cutters and Dr Dropin. They offered a package of around 35,000 crowns, without surcharge.
– We fear that the industry now offers attractive prices to customers that are easy to exploit. They know little about prices because they buy the service very infrequently, says general manager Henrik Tveter at Verd.
– It is important that the agency is an advisor and not a volume seller. Because it’s kind of weird to offer something that you really don’t want to offer, says Tveter.
Not unworthy of haggling
The Norwegian Consumer Agency fears that the bereaved will end up paying unnecessarily too much.
– It’s a very complex pricing landscape and people are in a tough spot so it can be challenging.
The Norwegian Competition Authority recommends that survivors get at least two full price offers.
– If you go to the websites, you get a certain overview so that you can get deals, says director Jo Gjedrem.
– You shouldn’t be ashamed of it, and it’s not unworthy of getting the right funeral at the right price.
The funeral home does not want to comment on the case.
