A family wound up paying for a burial that had already been covered because the cemetery said the late husband of the deceased woman hadn’t prepaid for it.
Doug Howell had a hunch his father prepaid for his mother's burial. His father made sure his family never had to worry about money.
“My father left my mother comfortable,” Howell said. “She never wanted for anything, and that was the type of person he was.”
So when Howell's mother passed away last year, he was surprised to learn Cedar Hill Cemetery in Suitland, Maryland, had no record of a pre-payment for her burial.
“I said, 'Did my father prepay for this burial and the vault?'” Howell said. “She said no. I thought that was kind of unusual because that's not my father.”
The Howells couldn't find any paperwork showing prepayment, so they went ahead and paid the $4,300 burial cost.
Months later, Howell made a shocking discovery.
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“I come across the certificate saying that the vault and the burial were prepaid for,” he said.
He also found proof of prepayment for his brother's plot, but the family had been charged again for that burial after his sudden passing in 1991, Howell said.
“So they had charged us for two burials that had been prepaid for, and at that point I was, like, I was furious,” Howell said.
NBC4 Responds contacted Cedar Hill and its owner, StoneMor. After passing NBC4 Responds’ questions from person-to-person for weeks, Cedar Hill agreed to issue a refund of more than $3,800.
"Our core mission is to memorialize every life with dignity,” Cedar Hill said in a statement. “We regret the error during Mr. Howell's time of need and have refunded him. In addition, we waived the overtime charges that were incurred."
While he's happy to have the money, Howell is still shocked by the ordeal.
“They haven't apologized to this day that they were sorry for, you know, basically taking, you know, my family's money,” he said.
While Howell was refunded the prepaid portion of his mother's burial, he is still trying to get a refund for his brother's funeral more than 26 years ago.
