Last summer, my husband, from whom I was estranged, died suddenly. As his next of kin, it was left to me to arrange his cremation, which I did via Co-op Funeralcare.
When I opened the box containing the ashes on the day of the planned scattering, I found paper with the details of a different man on it. The shock was indescribable.
Whose ashes did I have and what hope did I have of putting things right? Anon.
A reader was shocked when she found the wrong name in the box containing her husband’s ashes ahead of the planned scattering
Sally Hamilton replies: The letter you sent me in full revealed the extent of the upset you and your four grown-up children have endured following your husband’s death and the crass mistake over his ashes.
You told me how you had bumped into your husband for the first time in a while in town one day and agreed to meet for coffee. When he didn’t show up, instinct told you something was wrong, and you went to his flat where you tragically found him dead, confirmed afterwards to be from natural causes.
As his next of kin, you had to clear out the flat and deal with debt demands.
In amid this stress, you arranged his cremation. As he had little money, the Department for Work and Pensions agreed to pay the bill of £1,195 to the local branch of Co-op Funeralcare, with a contribution of just £300 — the balance left in your husband’s bank account.
Arrangements were delayed as you were told by Co-op the bill had not been paid, while DWP insisted it had been. Weeks went by until Co-op confirmed the bill had been paid and the cremation took place in September.
When you collected the ashes, they were supposed to be in a box inside a bag labelled with your husband’s details.
You made plans to scatter his ashes at sea, as he wished. It was only on the day of the planned scattering that you opened the box to remove the bag and discovered the paper with another man’s details on.
After a string of calls and texts to Co-op, you asked for a letter confirming whose ashes you had. The branch manager, you said, refused to accept liability and requested you bring back the ashes in person.
This involved a 120-mile round trip by car. Staff took the piece of paper with the other man’s details and informed you the ashes you received were your husband’s.
Unconvinced, you left, asking for this confirmation to be put in writing. Some time later, you received a letter — unsigned and undated — offering £200 compensation. You were furious and felt unable to scatter the ashes until you had more certainty.
By the time we spoke, you had initiated a complaint via the National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD), which runs an impartial complaints service. Meanwhile, I asked Co-op Funeralcare to give me its side of the story. It said the ashes you received were certainly the correct ones and that an administrative blunder was to blame for the wrong piece of paper landing up inside the box.
A spokesman said: ‘We have robust procedures in place for the identification, care and return of ashes. A thorough investigation has been carried out, and from this we have assured your reader that the ashes she received were those of her late husband’.
The ‘robust procedures’ involve the printing of a label from the digital records of the deceased, which is applied to the outside of the incinerator. After cremation, this label is put on a biodegradable bag containing the ashes.
A second label listing the deceased’s name is then applied to the box in which the bag of ashes is placed. Finally, a cremation certificate is placed inside the box — which also says the deceased’s name. Co-op said it logs ashes when they are received and a further label is generated, which is placed inside the box and only removed once the ashes are collected. It was at this stage that things went horribly wrong in your case, with a Co-op employee inserting the wrong paperwork.
The spokesman said: ‘Due to an administrative error, a label was incorrectly placed inside the box containing her husband’s ashes. We are extremely sorry for the distress this has caused.’
Nevertheless, Co-op insisted that the box of ashes contained the three identifying labels with your husband’s name. It added that as you had requested the return of any metals from your husband’s body and the coffin, these were provided in a separate bag in the box, marked with his name and cremation number.
You remain unhappy, even after the findings of the NAFD dispute resolution service accepted Co-op’s explanation. However, for the sake of your mental health, you have now decided, six months after your husband’s death and following my intervention, to settle. Co-op came back with an offer of £750 compensation, which you have accepted. You are now planning to scatter the ashes.
I understand why you feel unsettled. There can be no absolute proof the ashes are his. DNA testing would not resolve your doubts, as it will have been destroyed by the heat of the cremation.
Many bereaved families will be concerned about this story, and, like me, hoping the funeral industry is doing the maximum possible to avoid such mix-ups happening.
It may be small consolation, but Co-op confirmed that ‘re-training and education have been carried out to ensure all necessary lessons have been learned’.
I’m at the end of my tether with NatWest card chaos
On November 19, 2022, my husband used his NatWest debit card in the ChangeGroup cash machine at North Terminal, Gatwick Airport, to withdraw £200 from our joint bank account. The outside of the machine said withdrawals were free, but when the request to proceed came up it included a transaction fee. He cancelled immediately.
Within a minute, his phone pinged saying £200 had come out of our account.
My husband rang ChangeGroup and was told they could see an error that would be rectified. It has been over a year and the money is not back in our account. Please help.
D. L., Castletown, Isle of Man.
Sally Hamilton replies: You turned to your bank, NatWest, to retrieve the missing cash, but got nowhere and rightly felt at the end of your tether. I asked the bank to step up its efforts and within a few days an employee contacted you directly.
He apologised profusely and arranged to return your £200.
Interestingly, he was from the fraud department, which suggests the bank suspected foul play somewhere along the line, but it gave no further explanation.
Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.
