Indiana

But the FTC refuses to tell consumers exactly what the funeral homes did that was wrong.

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But the FTC refused to make public the nature of the violations at Cooke Funeral Home. Details of the violations are whited out from the documents that Team 4 requested.

The FTC took no action against Lanigan, but it did require the other four to enter the Funeral Rule Offenders Program, a three-year educational program operated not by the government but by the funeral home industry itself.

And that's the trade-off for offenders. They agree to enter the FROP program, and the public will never find out what they did wrong.

East Pittsburgh Funeral Director Pat Lanigan was also visited by undercover FTC agents, who later sent him a compliance letter claiming his business committed "very serious violations of the (funeral) rule." But the details of those violations were erased from the copy of the letter the FTC sent to Team 4.

"In my case, somebody could make up any story in any figment from their imagination about what I did wrong, and we didn't do anything wrong," said Lanigan. "Actually, it was just a misinterpretation by the FTC of our price list."

Luckily, Indiana funeral directors have not had a sweep like this one in Pittsburgh. That does not mean we can assume none loom in the future. Do a good audit of your procedures and make sure that your people get trained thoroughly in the Funeral Home Rule.