Crematorium Letter

[Dinglebert]

My mother passed away last month. Her ceremony was held at the local crematorium.

Today I received a letter from their head office offering amongst other things a rememberance plaque somewhere around the crematorium also her ashes to be made into jewellery.

I make no comment about people who choose to do such things at all. Different people need different things to get them through and have their memories.

However what I am seething at is getting the letter in the first place. I did not give them permission to contact me. I feel I have receive a spam mailing from a crematorium trying to upsell me. They have used my details to try to sell me things. I imagine they do that with every next of kin identified. I just feel its plain wrong. I had to give them my demographic details to go ahead with the funeral. I feel they have no right to use that to then try to upsell their services at a later time.

The law changed last year with the new Data Protection Act based on GDPR. Nowadays its not a case of you have to opt out of this type of contact instead you have to opt in. Without opt in they have no right to send me junk mail. If there needed to be contact due to say collecting the ashes then that would be different but it isn't the case. The ashes were collected from the Funeral Director already.

I detest junk mail with a vengance at the best of times but this just really gets to me. In many respects they are playing on emotions. You are not doing the best for your deceased relative unless you buy this extra thing etc.

I have sent them an email which explains just how much I don't appreciate their letter and brochures and that I will be taking my concerns to the ICO. It may be an over the top reaction but their actions anger me.