While the FACTS newspaper has been a staple in the African American community for many years, our…read morerecent experience has left a lot to be desired. After the recent loss of our loved one, we knew where we want to go to post the information. A 6am call from the company to obtain credit card information, for a 307 word obituary, which cost 228.00 proved startling. We had no idea no idea anyone would call at that hour about such matters, but were happy our request to post the obituary was being handled. The individual on the other end seemed confused, as they fumbled the credit card information repeatedly. The obituary was to run front page, in their 3/27/19 issue, as well as on their Facebook page. After emailing Dennis Beaver (publisher) a couple of times, as well as making calls to the business I found locations near our home to pick up copies. What a huge disappoint!
While the picture of our loved one looked great, there were several noticeable grammatical errors that stood out and made the entire obituary appear tacky. A call was placed to the company within an hour that day. Speaking to the female on the other end of the telephone, she seemed confused about my frustration. I pointed out the bold header states "in loving memory of for," the word importance 8 lines down is spelled "wimportance," homegoing services is spelled "Homeguoung Serves." She agreed to forward my concerns to Dennis Beaver, he called shortly, apologized, stated the company did not issue refunds ever, and that he would run a new obituary in the next edition. I explained this was pointless as the funeral was occurring that weekend, 3/31/19. we wanted copies for our family that were coming to town, and errors should have been captured. I emailed him a copy to demonstrate no errors were in the original copy sent. Even if there were, the company should have captured and corrected them prior to publication. I was assured corrections would be made on the social media part to bring things up to standard, and spare any embarrassment. A partial refund was asked for, since in our opinion " a half ass job" had occurred. Again, the response was "no."
Over the next 24 hours no attempt was made to correct the errors on the social media site. Even up to the day of the funeral nothing was done, and Mr. Beaver no longer responded to our requests to make things look decent on the online page as he said he would. He never did what he promised. We felt this was because payment had been received already. Our family and many friends saw this page run with these errors. The day after the funeral occurred which was April 1st, Mr. Beaver emailed a copy of a FACTS link showing the new obituary that would run without the errors. A little too late. We would have preferred a refund, or partial refund. I would hesitate before doing business with them again. This proved to be a disappointing experience from a paper that always took pride in what they put out there for the community previously.
