Fight to the death! Price comparison boss goes to war with UK’s biggest undertaker he accuses of ripping off grieving families
A WAR of words between Britain’s biggest chain of undertakers and a specialist price comparison site has shattered the peace of the sombre world of funeral directors.
The website beyond.life – whose slogan is Don’t Get R.I.P.’D Off’ – and its colourful boss Ian Strang have accused undertakers Dignity of ‘profiteering’ from grief and failing to be transparent about its prices.
In turn, Dignity claims it is being misrepresented on the beyond.life website, with its prices unfairly made to look high in comparison with those of independent undertakers.
Now Dignity has threatened to take beyond.life to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
The fierce row comes against a backdrop of a major investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) into rip-off pricing in the £2billion funeral industry.
Prices have risen by three times the inflation rate over the past few years.
Dignity, with more than 800 branches across the country, found itself squarely in the firing line last November when a CMA interim report found it consistently had the highest profit margins of any large funeral chain in the Western world.
The chain promised to cut some of its prices and introduced a new ‘Simple’ range of no-frills funerals as the CMA launched an industrywide investigation.
Beyond.life is the leading comparison website for funeral prices in the UK. Consumers use it to see the cheapest deals for funerals in their area.
The row began ten days ago when Dignity commercial director Steve Wallis wrote a 48-page letter to beyond.life formally requesting the removal of ‘misleading statements on your website’ and accusing it of breaching the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) code.
According to Mr Wallis, the comparison tool is ‘misleading’ and fails to take into account Dignity’s Simple service.
He claimed the comparisons between some Dignity branches and independent funeral directors were unfair because they were not comparing like with like.
‘We consider these breaches of the CAP Code to be a serious matter as the public is being significantly misled, and we are being unfairly commercially disadvantaged,’ he added.
But yesterday Mr Strang hit back in a letter to Dignity, which he shared with The Mail on Sunday.
‘I can only imagine that the production of this rainforest-threatening tome was a cold act of revenge for our 13,000-word report dissecting Dignity and its decades-long profiteering.
‘From the day that we first lifted the shadowy veil from your prices, we have been crystal-clear on how these were gathered and displayed. To summarise… Dignity PLC price at a premium to other providers… We believe that customers should be able to easily see Dignity’s prices online.’
He claimed that pricing information issued by Dignity itself ‘took the skills of a sudoku grandmaster to decipher’.
Mr Strang told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Dignity’s insistence on punching down at the little guy is incredibly undignified, but the fun and games of our back and forth should not distract from the serious subject matter, and the major underlying issues in the funeral industry.
‘For far too long, consumers in this country have had their grief exploited and the major chains – particularly Dignity – have been at fault. This has long been our view but now it is shared by the CMA.
‘All we are doing is trying to give customers the relevant pricing information as easily as possible. Dignity refuses to do this themselves so we’re just trying to do the legwork for them, but they are welcome to set us straight at any time by publishing their prices online.’
A spokesman for Dignity said yesterday: ‘We believe beyond.life has been knowingly presenting the prices and services offered by Dignity funeral directors inaccurately. As a result, the public is being misled into thinking our prices are higher than they really are.
‘Last year, we materially reduced our prices, which are published on our website.
‘Comparison sites should be there to enhance consumer choice, but this serves to restrict it.
‘Beyond has a commission relationship with non-Dignity funeral directors featured on its website and we believe it is in breach of the CAP code on nonbroadcast advertising.
‘In line with ASA guidelines, we have contacted the company to highlight our concerns and requested they remove and cease to repeat misleading advertising.’