I chose All County Funeral Home & Crematory in Stuart, FL to cremate my father. He was transferred from the hospital on 12/28/12 & my best friend & I met with Fern, the Funeral Director assigned to me, on 12/29/12 to authorize the cremation. As I reside in NY & would only be in FL for a week, I authorized the release of my father's remains to a family friend for pick up & to ship them to me, due to the fact that All County would only send remains via registered mail & informed me that it would take 2 weeks. I informed Fern that I would be holding a memorial service in NY, & asked if 1/13 would give them enough time to cremate, & remains to arrive in NY. Her exact answer to me was "Yes, that gives us plenty of time".
I called to speak to Fern on 1/3 @ 9:13am to follow up & was told by the receptionist that she was off. I asked if the death certificate was forwarded to my father's physician. The receptionist stated it had been but it wasn't returned. I called the physician & was told it was faxed back on 1/2. I asked to resend, as the funeral home claimed they did not receive it. I called All County back @ 9:29am to inform them the physician had already sent the form & would be resending it & to please make sure that it did not get lost.
I called All County again on 1/4 @ 10:32am & was told that the form had been received & sent to the medical examiner & to call back the following week for an update. I called on 1/7 & Fern was not in the office again. I was informed by the receptionist that the medical examiner refused to sign the death certificate due to an error & it was returned to them unsigned. I called All County again on 1/10 @ 2:14pm & asked to speak to Fern; I was transferred to a voicemail. I hung up & called again @ 3:55pm after leaving a message & not receiving a call back. Fern was out of the office again. After several hours of waiting for a call, I called All County a 3rd time, asked to speak to a supervisor & was referred to Andrea, who I also left a message for. Andrea called me back but I was unavailable. I returned the call & reached Vincent, who was on-call from another location. After explaining the situation & lack of correspondence from Fern, he called Andrea & had her call me again that evening. Andrea informed me that my father still had not been cremated but she would call me in the morning; I informed her that Jerry would be working on Friday until 7pm & would be unavailable to go to Stuart on Friday. Andrea called @ 8:56am & informed me that my father's remains would be available to be picked up that day. I called All County that afternoon & again informed them that because they took two weeks to cremate my father & left it until the last business day before the memorial service, there was no way that the family friend would be able to pick up his remains. Andrea told me to ask someone else to pick them up & call her to let her know who would be coming. As I live in NY & do not know anyone else in FL, that was impossible.
I called All County back that afternoon & finally got Fern. I was devastated that due to her lack of follow up, my father's remains would not be in NY for the memorial service. She told me that she would contact the family friend directly & call me back. Today is 1/25 & I still have not heard back from her. Since 1/11, I have spoke to various people at All County informing them of my dissatisfaction in their ability to complete the cremation in a timely manner. They failed to provide me with my father's remains despite Fern's verbal agreement that 1/13 was a satisfactory date for the memorial. Due to her error, I requested that All County mail the remains to me at their cost. They have refused. I asked that Fern call me back; she has not. My father's remains are still at the funeral home 29 days after his death. read more