Browns Funerals (FC Brown & Co)

For various reasons I was beyond disappointed with Browns of Bundaberg. I have held off writing this review for a month since my last interaction with the company to ensure that everything that I have to say is written without haste. For anyone considering using this company in a time of immense grief, I strongly recommend you read this review in its entirety before making your decision. I have taken every effort to acknowledge the good and the tolerable aspects of this companies service before explaining how notoriously hurtful this experience has been.



The good: Branyan Gardens is a beautiful location and the undertakers were respectful when they came into our home on a day of great grief for myself and my family.



The bad: Everything about this experience, grief aside, has been unpleasant. When meeting the administrative staff to fill out forms following the passing, the lady who sat down with us was cold, rushed, and overall very ignorant of our very real grief. We were able to put this past us, as a family, based on her everyday dealings with death and the desensitisation which may accompany this. In addition, the cost was unruly. We decided to look around and request an exit fee as we were unhappy with the price and customer service. When hearing that we had considered exiting the service for another company who had been very attentive and friendly over the phone (and quoted us almost 30% of the price quoted by Browns of Bundaberg), Browns immediately dropped their price to 40% of the original fee with no further questions asked. This is an insane amount of money to drop from, what were told was, a “standard price”.



We were told that we would get a call to advise us of the cremation, and a call when the ashes were ready. We heard nothing until my dad followed up over 7 working days later, when, upon calling Browns, it was acknowledged that the ashes were already waiting for collection. Living almost an hour away, my dad had me attend to pick them up. He called earlier in the day to organise this and was told to give email consent for me to collect them. When I arrived, the staff were totally unprepared. They had not printed the forms, they had not checked their emails, and they implied my dad had not followed through. This disorganisation is also shown through their payment system, where an invoice is sent by mail, without an invoice number, and it is the consumers responsibility to ring Browns and advise them that a payment has been made. I feel like an account payable or an EFTPOS machine alternative is a more honest and timely method of receiving payment.



The ugly: Almost a month after the passing my father told me he had not heard anything about the death certificate (a necessary document to complete necessary actions following a death). Wanting no further dealings with this company he requested I call them to follow this up. When I did this, I INSTANTLY wished I could have a transcript following our HORRIFYING conversation. To summarise what was said, I asked the lady who answered my call (Mrs Brown herself) if the death certificate had been generated as we hadn’t heard anything about this despite being advised of a 10-day turnaround time. Beth became quite defensive, and strongly worded the following to me:



“Look, we have attempted to contact [Deceased parent’s name] and she has not picked up the phone. The certificate is ready, we have attempted to make contact, and we are not at fault for this delay.” I kindly stressed to her that there was no possibility for the person named to answer the phone as she is deceased. Beth firmly told me that it was irrelevant as to why my parent had not picked up the phone, but that the certificate was ready for collection and they had attempted to notify. Frustrated, I once more tried to tell Beth that it would be impossible for my parent to answer the phone when she is the person who had been cremated by their service. Beth huffed on to say that the cert