Family’s second letter of complaint to Acropolis Funerals

“If hatred is a disease, it is mutating. As our culture cures itself of one strain, new ones take its place.”

Jamil Zaki in 

The war for kindness: Building empathy in a fractured world. (2019). London: Robinson.

The follow up letter was sent on 21 February 2011, just over a year after my father’s funeral, and just over eight months since the first letter. All correspondence and attempts at resolving this issue have been scanned and kept by me and my family. 

Given this letter, allegedly never received by Acropolis Funerals, is now shared on my blog, there is no excuse that they haven’t “received” it. This is my blog, I have a right to share a legitimate review about my experience of funeral directors in the funeral business that behaved unethically. My family carry the scars of what the staff at this funeral business did. There is no deadline, like a legal statute of limitations, in trying to heal from these wounds. Because Acropolis Funerals and its directors, both former and current, refused to cooperate to resolve this issue when we tried within the first year. The unconscionable conduct from the FDA, then frustrating attempts with the toothless Department of Fair Trading, resulted in greater trauma and greater lapse of time. This lead to failure at the NCAT, other than experiencing the most horrendous attitude from the current funeral director and another heartless employee. 

Given the greater indifference and narcissism that was to come, I must write my lived experiences of indifference and narcissism that have festered. Australia has become very sick as a society. To quote Troy Stolz, a brave man who challenged Chris Minns as an Independent, for the seat of Kogarah at the last NSW state election, we have a legal system, not a justice system. He knows this all too well in his ethical and passionate battle for greater regulatory and systemic reform, accountability and laws regarding the gambling industry. Concurrently, this social justice warrior is also being treated for cancer. Now this man is a true blue Aussie battler, for society, for his mates, who were also persecuted for being ethical, for a justice system.

This was the follow-up letter of complaint sent to Acropolis Funerals:

To whom it may concern, 

A number of months ago we sent you a letter of complaint concerning the fact that you issued a funeral vehicle to a group of people for our father’s funeral without our authorisation and consent.

Overall, you handled the funeral fairly well and with sensitivity.* However, you displayed unacceptable professional misconduct in issuing a funeral vehicle to anyone - in this case estranged relatives - without our prior consent. In other words, you simply disregarded us (your clients) and gave [the priest] and his family the vehicle because, to use your own words, he had told you he had “organised it” with us, and then, to use your own words again, he “demanded” the vehicle from you. 

We kindly requested that you send us a written explanation why you issued the aforementioned person with the vehicle, especially going against our wishes as your clients. For some strange reason you have refused to forward this letter to us. Had you sent us the letter we requested we would have had no further problem with your business. We would have simply taken up the matter with [the priest]. In refusing to send us a written explanation for your action, you have only made your position worse. 

As a funeral business you should know better than to go against the wishes of a bereaved family when they entrust funeral arrangements to you. A bereaved family has more than enough to deal with, without having to worry about the funeral business making its own choices and its own decisions. 

We regret to inform you that we have no other choice but to forward this matter to a solicitor who will advise us accordingly. 

Sincerely,

The [family].

____________

* We were yet to learn about the dash in the line item for “extra vehicle” on the agreement, and what would likely be “claimed” by Acropolis had we taken legal action. I can’t speak for my family, but for me, I retract the sentence about how Acropolis Funerals “handled” the funeral. 

The unprofessional way the staff conducted themselves toward my family, without any attempt to seek a reasonable and fair resolution about their own decision regarding my father’s funeral, it was not only an act of betrayal and disrespecting our wishes, it robbed us of closure. Once again sunlight is the best disinfectant. 

I will not be robbed of my voice and my right to share my own traumatic experience of this funeral business and the unethical conduct of its funeral directors, both former and current. The former, Kon, has started another funeral business, Icon Funerals. The current funeral director of Acropolis Funerals was then an employee, who came into our family home, prepared and ready to betray us, to use a mark, the dash, on the written agreement, while withholding information to disadvantage us, a vulnerable family at the time, and benefit and protect Acropolis Funerals in their unethical practices. I suspect they already had insider information from Kon’s brother, also a priest, the chaplain at the chapel at Rookwood, not far from where my father is now buried. This is clericalism. This is the clergy club. This is abuse of power. 

I’m sickened by the unconscionable conduct and horrendous attitude. From all of them. It’s something I will never forget.