Neptune Society

[stash]

Curious if anyone has had any dealings with this group and if so, what did you think of their plan?

[E.Marquez]

Yes and no.............. My mother was looking at them (I found the paperwork) and so upon her death I contacted them...it was not pleasant.. it was not helpful and it was not to be a quick process....either the program or the actual event.

We choose a different path ...plan....and my mother was with her favorite bay waters, having floated to them from the Golden Gate Bridge.

EDIT... My apologies, it seems there is more than one "Neptune" funeral business. The one I had dealings with specialized in cremation and burial at sea...
Please excuse my confusion with the company you posted.. I have no information relative to http://www.neptunesociety.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[stash]

No apologies necessary.

[baldeagle]

We looked in to them. They seemed legitimate. I have chosen to donate my body to the body farm at Southeast Texas State. It costs nothing, and they will pick up the body for free within a 250 mile radius of their facility. In my opinion it's a valuable service that allows you to provide value to society even after you are gone. There's another body farm at Texas State as well.

[stash]

baldeagle - thanks for that info. I never thought of that. I am going to give that some serious thought. Besides, I live about 20 miles from the Texas State body farm.

[scottmeador]

My wife's grandfather past away last weekend and he had a "contract" with the Neptune Society of Fort Worth. They were contacted on Sunday and the "answering service" said that they would page the director on call. As Sunday became Monday no one had called and my FIL was facing the situation of having to make other arrangements, but he decided to call one more time (about 0830 Monday) and this time was told they open at 0930. He called back right at 0930 and someone finally answered and they stated that a page was never received.

It would seem that most of the death care industry is 24/7 in one way or another but it doesn't seem that this organization is.

On the good side they honored the contract without trying to up sale products or services. The only additional charge was $95.00 for 20 copies of the certificate.

[n5wd]

Sorry that you had that experience with the Fort Worth office of the Neptune Society. My experience with them was just this last April when my wife, Pamela, died on a Sunday evening. We, too (the hospital's chaplain and I were on the phone together ) got the recording, and left a message. The answering service called back within 10 minutes ( apparently the calls are routed to the company's home office in Florida) and a local person called back within 20 minutes of the original time, and arranged for a service to pick up my wife's body shortly (within a couple of hours, IIRC). By the time I got home a couple of hours later, I had received a phone call from the hospital confirming that her body had been picked up. The funeral director called about9 the next morning (I had requested they not call earlier than that since I was going to be on the phone most of the night) and the immediate stuff was taken care of quickly - I did have to go to their office on Tuesday to pay the bill, give them a copy of MY DD-214, drop off the picture for the obit, and then emailed them the obit later that afternoon.

I found their service to be good, professional (they readily picked up the tab for the amended death certificates after the hospital put in the wrong date for the date of death) and the prices to be very good. There were only three full-service plans, all under $2,000, mainly differentiated by the type/quality/material of the urns, along with some other things, such as number of copies of the death certificate, thank you cards, etc.

Pamela had wanted no funeral services, but had agreed to let us perform a celebration of life/memorial service which we did, a few weeks later at one of the Tarrant County College campus auditoriums (we needed that big of a place for everone who had expressed an interest in coming) so all the Neptune Society did was the body pick-up, cremation permit from the City of Fort Worth, Death certificatEs (and getting me the corrected addendums), setting up her internment at the DFW National Cemetery, and the urns, one large one for internment, and two smaller ones, one for my son and one for me.

I was completely happy with the service and the professionalism, and will be purchasing a pre-paid cremation for myself in the near future so my son won't have to do anything but make a phone call.

So, Stash - consider this an endorsement for them.

E Marquez - no, it IS the same company. We had the option of having Pam's cremains placed in that Florida underwater memorial park - there are local offices in many places, including the one I dealt with in Fort Worth. The funeral director did tell me about that unique memorial and described the process, which does take a bit of paperwork with the State of Florida, but we decided that Pam's cremains would be there at the DFW National Cemetery where my parents are, and where my ashes will go when I die - we'll share the same columbarium vault.