Follow-up Note As Promised: Hard as it is to believe, the whole thing seems to have been some combination of coincidence and wrong number. That being the case, I've gone through and soft-scrubbed names and phone numbers, since the Funeral Home in question apparently doesn't deserve the potential bad press. I'll post about the follow-up call (where I called them back) in the morning.
In the past couple of days, I have received a couple of calls from Unnamed Funeral Home. The calls are coming to my cell phone -- no idea why, as it's a number provided by my workplace and not widely known. I don't think it's anything that comes up if you do a search on my name, so I'm not sure how they would have gotten it. (Unless maybe they called work, and someone there gave it to them?)
I'm transcribing the messages below. They're not entirely clear, so I've put {brackets} around the parts I'm not sure of.
Message 1: "{Hi miss Colleen, this is ???} ...Calling from Unnamed Funeral Home. Just giving a courtesy call, if you could give us a call back at XXX-XXX-XXXX."
Message 2: "Hello, this is That Guy with Unnamed Funeral Home. I was calling to touch base with you and discuss {Betty?} with you. If you'll give me a call back, um, I'm so sorry that you're having to go through this with your mom and we just want to be here for you and help you out and {believe?} you and guide you in a very positive direction. And we also need to get you scheduled to come out and make some final arrangements. My number is XXX-XXX-XXXX. If you'll press Option 1 just ask for That Guy. Thank you so much. Bye-bye."
I'm deeply puzzled (and potentially very angry) about this. I suppose it's possible that one of their customers accidentally put down my number instead of their own, but that would be one hell of a coincidence. I've checked in with my father, and confirmed that:
1. Dad has not heard from Unnamed Funeral Home.
2. Mom has already been cremated.
3. Dad has already settled everything with the place where she was cremated.
4. The place where Mom was cremated was not Unnamed Funeral Home, and to the best of our knowledge was not affiliated in any way with Unnamed Funeral Home.
It sounds like a cold-call, a sales call. It sounds like somebody saw my mother's obituary, did a search on people with the same last name (there aren't that many of us) and called me up hoping to bring in some extra business. It had better not be anything of the kind, but that's what it sounds like.
So I'm going to do some following-up and see what's actually going on here. If it's innocent, I'll edit this post to add a note saying so. If it's not, well... that'll be the next article here on the Blog o' Doom.
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