Consumer Protection, Price Disclosure, and Prohibited Practices
What the exam tests
This domain combines the FTC Funeral Rule with Ohio's licensing and preneed statutes: what must be disclosed, when, in what form, and which business practices draw discipline.
Price disclosure duties
- Maintain a printed general price list (GPL) with itemized prices for services, facilities, and merchandise; offer it to anyone who asks about prices or arrangements, and give it to consumers who select services.
- Provide a casket price list and an outer burial container price list before showing those items.
- Give itemized written statements of the goods and services selected and the total cost.
- Disclose prices by telephone on request and provide the GPL to callers who ask.
- State clearly that embalming is not required by law in every case, and that an alternative container is available for cremation.
Prohibited practices
- Requiring a casket as a condition of cremation, or embalming as a condition of a direct burial or cremation.
- Misrepresenting legal requirements, or charging for unauthorized embalming.
- Paying or receiving kickbacks for referrals, and soliciting at the scene of a death.
- Practicing or holding out without a license, false advertising, and commingling preneed funds.
- Failing to refund unearned preneed money on cancellation.
Worked example
A family requests a direct cremation by phone. The provider reads the itemized prices, discloses that embalming is not required, offers an alternative container, and later gives the itemized statement. Charging a package price with an undisclosed casket would violate both the Funeral Rule and Ohio practice standards.
Traps that cost marks
Quoting only package prices; forgetting the outer-container list; assuming the GPL is given only at the arrangement conference; and treating preneed refunds as a business decision rather than a statutory duty.