After Death: Behind the scenes of Australia’s funeral industry | Four Corners

Thankfully, there are still some good funeral directors out there. I found a small family owned mortuary when my 8 year old son passed away and they literally provided ALL OF THEIR SERVICES FOR FREE!!! Yes FREE! The owner said he would have given me the coffin for free if it were his to give. He didn’t have a child’s coffin available at his funeral home so he had to go through another mortuary. So I purchased it from a 3rd party essentially. They even had the priest preform my sons funeral service for free. My son was cleaned, embalmed, dressed, placed and cared for by the owner himself. My son was so beautiful at his viewing. He said he treated my son as if he were his own. ❤️ There are no words to adequately thank him for everything he did for my husband and I. He said no child should die and no family should be burdened by the cost of laying them to rest.

My father is a funeral director in the UK and he always says that manipulation of families to spend more when grieving is so prevalent in the industry. He explains everything to the families clearly, he always goes for the cheapest option and allows the family to decide what they want rather than persuading them to spend every penny. He treats every person, dead and alive, with respect and I have the utmost respect for him and how he does his work.

I worked in a mortuary as a pathologist assistant when a child was brought in, many of my tears fell inside the child while stitching. We looked after each body with dignity and respect

My father passed away a month ago, and we paid for a simple funeral, but with a beautiful service and ceremony. With the extra money we did something good for someone in need. Trust me it is a much better feeling that putting the money on this unethical people’s pocket.

I'm a Funeral Director and an Embalmer. I've seen many Funeral Directors take advantage of grieving families. It's sickening!!!

being a nurse, I am in complete shock and saddened by the lack of respect. Absolutely disgusting

Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING in this life is all about money. Even death.

This time three years ago, my Mother was in the last stages of her life here on earth, she had a peaceful passing for which I am truly thankful for, in the days leading up, dear friends and loved ones came to say farewell, to hug, talk, cry and help Mum pass with dignity and love surrounding her. Here’s the thing though, death is almost a taboo subject, we fear it and we don’t talk about it, but we should. We celebrate births and birthdays but we mourn instead of celebrating a life and all the beautiful moments, love and laughter we shared. I want to share this, Mum and I talked about death regularly, we were open about it, and even joked together that I could take her ashes travelling to see sights etc, probably due to her health issues and the fact she lost both her parents when she was 17, she was honest and insightful. Today I am grateful to her because I think those talks and her openness made it easier at that incredibly difficult moment and all the times since when I I’ve been overwhelmed by her loss. She showed me I would survive. It’s important to share your wishes so people know what you want. For instance, Mum knew it would be hard for me to let her go, she raised us on her own, and that I would suffer if she was whisked away straight after her passing, so we asked the funeral directors to bring her home (she passed in hospital) after she died, she was with us for 5 days after she passed, we asked for no extra procedures as she’d had so many in her life, though I stayed in the room whilst they removed her pacemaker at home (for cremation), and we cared for her body right up until her service, moisturising her skin, trimming her nails, doing her hair, makeup and dressing her in beautiful Pyjamas, loved ones came over and shared memories, talked and played beautiful music in the lounge room with her right there, I wouldn’t have done it any other way looking back, the point is, if you don’t know you can ask, you won’t, end of life stuff doesn’t need to be the “funeral directors cut”, do it your way. After 5 days, the funeral staff collected her and I followed them to where her service was held, we then had the family/friend service, then we left and went to another chapel for final private goodbyes, then in the next room my brother, his two sons and I, lifted Mums soft eco casket into the cremation chamber, and my brother and I pushed the buttons to close it. We were there with her till the end, just as she was at our beginning of our lives. And she never spent a night in the mortuary, we just had our air conditioner on for 5 days. I have so many people to be thankful for in my life who have supported us at that time, it was a small and loving environment and it gives me comfort to know she was never alone.

The most insane business practice is shaming a family into spending $1000’s on an expensive coffin to then burn it into ash.

When I went for a job interview with White Lady Funerals, I was asked by the Area Manager if I would be willing to 'volunteer at least 2 hours of my shift, especially its a night shift". I replied "Do the savings to the company get passed down onto the customer?"...I was met with silence. So No!. What a scam. I reported her to Invocare Head Office and I got no response. Imagine hiring 6 women and each volunteer at least 2 hours..that's thousands of dollars saved by the company PLUS the added bonus of charging the client. Yep, its a scam. How unethical and unprofessional is that?.

My heart hurts for the young woman who's mother's was given such crappy care from White Dove Funeral Home. That man is a real piece of work.

When my husband passed the funeral director was quite helpful. He advised me different choices for his cremation. He told me to keep in mind that my husband wasn’t there. That he had passed on and that he was always wanting to save his finances. I was so grateful that after I was feeling stressed I went back to the funeral home and pre-arranged my own funeral and paid in advance. I had no children and I didn’t want my family to have to deal with that. I told the family I have left where to find my will and other important papers. I recommend to everyone I can to pre-plan and prepay their own funeral because funerals are getting a lot more expensive every year and it is not likely to go on sale. Prepaying is locking in the prices.

Years ago my family owned a funeral home, it was in business beginning in the very late 1800’s. When I was approached by my family if I would take it over I thought about it for almost a week. I couldn’t do it because I couldn’t make money on other people’s sadness and grief. One thing my great great grandfather had set in place was we would NEVER charge families for the funerals of infants or toddlers.

My father passed away at home and when a lady came to organize the funeral, she said that we could collect his ashes in a weeks time. I found this to be odd because If he was getting cremated at the funeral, they can scrape the ashes out straight away. After watching this documentary, I am more than convinced that he would have been one of the many who were taken to Sydney. It all makes sense to me now. Thank you for doing this documentary and opening our eyes to what really happens with our loved ones who when they pass. Just because a person is no longer alive, as the family planning the funeral and grieving at the same time, it doesn’t cross our mind about how they are being treated or prepared. Shame on them for taking advantage of people who are grieving

I worked for a funeral home in Sydney, I actually really liked the job, it was very difficult but it was special, I did it all from cleaning the vehicles to putting the coffins together to transporting the deceased and preparing them for their funeral, I cleaned them dressed them. And that was special. It’s a job not everyone could do but I could and I was proud of that. Unfortunately my experience turned out really badly. The home I worked at was truely awful, I was treated very poorly, I had a supervisor who sabotaged me at every chance, and the first opportunity he got he sacked me.

When I was arranging my mother-in-law's funeral I was pissed. I was going through the list of costs and one of the charges was $500 just to close the casket. Told them I'd close it. I was loud enough that they were scared other families would hear and took the charge off. I told them that just goes to show that they were ripping people off.

Apologies??? Your “mistake” costed this family $4700 !! You wanna apologize? Then give this family their money back!!!

Any person who thinks it is just rational to crunch up a body and throw a dress over a woman without care just does not belong in this business.

I had a stillborn baby back in November 2001. Where most funeral homes give services for babies or cremations for free we however had to pay $700 with a credit card because I was a high risk pregnancy and couldn’t work. When we went to pick up our babies ashes the funeral director didn’t even take us to a room to bring us the ashes. He just handed them to us standing In the lobby like 2 idiots. That was 21 years ago and it still bothers me.

We have a funeral home just 13 minutes away from where I live. I went with a friend to set up a service for her mom. The funeral director was kind and understanding. He told us everything that we needed to know and never tried to get her to buy more. Her mom wanted to be naturally buried and left it up to her for a funeral. She decided to hold the service at the burial and everyone participated in the funeral by dropping flowers or dirt in the grave. We held a get together at her favorite restaurant to honor her. It was very beautiful and moving. She told me a few days later that she bought the funeral home a bouquet of flowers and sweets as thanks for everything they did for the family. 😊 It's absolutely appalling to overcharge for a funeral and not tell them the costs prior. That's is such a deceptive and sick thing to do to a grieving family. 😤