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A NORTH SHORE based memorial service company has
launched a campaign to end telephone solicitation in the

B.C. funeral industry.

First Memorial Services Ltd.
general manager Jim Darby said
Wednesday his company made the
move because ‘tit has reached the
point where we had to take action
to stop a bad situation from get-
ting worse. We see so much abuse
and get so many calls from people
who have been sold things they
don’t need, we just had to take a
stand.”’

A petition drafted by First Me-
morial last week calls for legista-
tion against all telephone or door-
to-door solicitation of cemetery
and funeral services.

Current legislation in B.C. under
the Funeral Plan Act makes it il-
legal to sell funeral services and
goods such as embalming and
caskets door-to-door or over the
phone, but ullows the telephone or
door-to-door sile of such cemetery
services as cremations, cemetery
plots and memorial markers.

GOV'T PROMISE

The government, Darby said,
has been promising to do some-
thing about the situation since
1976, but nothing has happened
thus far

Darby said smaller independent
operations in the funeral industry
are rapidly being absorbed by a
trio of large funeral con-
glomerates, who now control 60
per cent of the market.

Sales personnel working for the
larger conglomerates, he said,
work largely on a commission
basis, which leads to high-pressure
sales tactics and the sale of unnec-
essary and expensive ‘‘pre-need”’
merchandise and services to people
who are extremely vulnerable.

Darby said sales personnel get

By TIMOTHY RENSHAW
News Reporter

their feet in a prospective client's
door by discussing cemetery ser-
vices then proceed to sell pre-need
funeral services.

He added that pre-need sales in
the B.C. funeral industry were
about $2 million last year.

But Forest Lawn Memorial Park
general manager Lenore Martin
said telephone = solicitation can
mean anything from picking ran-
dom names from the telephone
book to following up mailed in-
formation brochures to find out if
more information is needed.

‘A CONVENLENCE'

She said her company, which
was acquired by Service Corpora
tion International in 1969, deals in
cemetery services only, ‘‘but itis a
great convenience at the time of
death to have as many details as
possible taken care of in advance.”

Martin added that it would be
extremely difficult to prohibit any
one industry from using telephone
aud door-to-door sales.

Darby said his company is not
against the concept of + re-need
sales; “We have our own (pre-
need) program. Our issue is with
the (sales) vehicle, It is a terrible
invasion of privacy.”

Provincial government cemetery
division spokesman Donald Pat-
terson said Thursday the issue of
pre-need = selling was extremely
complex with many ‘pros and
cons and ins and outs. But we are
aware of Mr. Darby and what he is
doing. All [ can say is the situation
is under study.”’