The Good Funeral Guide

Members of the Official Richard Sage Fan Club will be interested to learn that our unwearied superdork has resurfaced. Richard Who? Click on the Category at the end of this post to trigger a cascade of ordure.

I can’t say exactly where he is — I must protect my source. But he is still in the UK and once more back in the private ambulance business. It was in his guise as a private ambulance operator that Sage swindled the NHS, his staff and his customers of hundreds of thousands of pounds some years ago, an irregularity of which M’lud took such a disapproving view that he banged him up for seven years.

I can today announce that I am in a position to effect the restoration of a sum of money to one of those who has been swindled by the much misunderstood Sage. Don’t ask how, it’s a long story, and it’s all devilishly above board.

If you have an outstanding CCJ against Mr Sage, please contact me. I’ll do what I can for you.

charles@goodfuneralguide.co.uk  /  07946 714 063

Sorry to be so cloak and dagger about this. It’s the only way the sting can succeed.

In recent months there’s been quite a bit of interest in Britain’s bentest undertaker, Richard Sage. A glance at the search terms people use to find my website tell me that, since June ’10, 330 have been hunting ‘Richard Sage’ and another 110 ‘Richard Sage Funeral Director’. That makes him almost as popular as coffins.

Run out of Manchester in October 2009, Mr Sage resurfaced in nearby Burnley where he set up as J Kendal and Sons. All the while, his online cut-price undertaking service, Direct Funeral Services, continued to trade from an address at which another online cut-price funeral director, Nationwide Funerals, was also registered.

At the time of his departure from Manchester, Mr Sage had this to say to the Manchester Evening News: “In regards to my past, yes I have been convicted and served my sentence. Now I have rehabilitated myself back into society and that is what I now call my past – a past that I have learnt from and have moved forward, being a better person.”

This was not the impression formed by the GFG’s North of England Correspondent. He has kept me well-informed of nefarious goings-on. And in his most recent report he informs me that Mr Sage has upped sticks and done (another) runner. He says: “Just been to see his garage where he kept all the hearses and such, its completely empty and the signs off the windows and on the front are all gone, he still has the sign on the side door, which says J. Kendal and Sons Funeral directors and such, but i been keeping close eye on that place … I also been up to the funeral home and it is bare empty and up for sale the signs are still on but its up for sale.”

Whither has he flown this time? Chances are he’s battening down the hatches in his pad on the Costa del Sol. We shall see. But I think he may have learned a lesson, this time, about the power of the internet to disseminate information, enabling people to keep tabs on him. If that’s the case. I am pleased to think the GFG may have played a part.

If it has, then I’d like to say a big thank you on behalf of all of us to the GFG’s North of England Correspondent. I can’t name him, obviously. But I raise my glass to you, sir.

For more background on Richard Sage simply google ‘Richard Sage funeral director’.

A couple of months ago I was tipped off that the oft-disgraced Richard Sage was alive, well and practising in Burnley, Lancashire in the guise of J Kendal at this address:

40 Briercliffe Road, Burnley BB10 1XB

I followed this up and discovered it to be so.

Don’t know who Richard Sage is? Google him.

At the same time, I was looking into the activities of Nationwide Funerals. I posted a piece on the blog drawing attention to the similarity of their offer to that of Richard Sage’s other operation, Direct Funeral Services,  and the perils generally of being an internet undertaker in the wake of Sage. I wrote and asked for Nationwide’s comments. I received a very cross email saying, among other things:

‘you will understand our dissapointment in your post and the damaging non substantiated comments about a Mr Sage who we have researched since your posting. We are disgusted that this name is even on the same page as our company.’

I took the blog post down in a spirit of friendly dialogue while I tried to find out more about a company which can do you a funeral for £970 plus disbursements. I was disappointed in my attempts to get Nationwide to talk to me. I got this:

‘I apologies for your dissapointment, however please understand a new company dealing with many customers needs to concentrate on its services it is providing and cannot prioritise trade and bloggers enquiries. Your request should be actioned when we have the time.’

I rang and rang, then let it go. I posted a warning on my website.

I had been told by a person claiming to have been employed by Mr Sage that the owner of Nationwide, Aidan Cabrera Moreno, was living at Mr Sage’s address. (This same person, who alleged that he had been a victim of Mr Sage, also told me he reckons Mr Moreno to be a nice guy.) Today I received another tip-off from someone who has been investigating Nationwide Funerals at Companies House. It was the missing link. It turns out that Nationwide Funerals is registered at this address:

40 Briercliffe Road, Burnley, BB10 1XB

Funeral directors who read this blog will be wondering who the funeral director is in the handsome video on the Nationwide website. You can find him here.

What are the industry’s trade bodies, NAFD and SAIF doing about this, I wonder. I shall write and ask them.

I am aware of no malpractice on the part of Nationwide Funerals who have now expanded to the London area.

There are bad people who can be made better (the majority) and there are bad people who can’t.

I’ve blogged about Direct Funeral Services in the past, and it’s worth doing again.

He’s still at it, that nice Mr Sage. He’s a blagger, the sort who ought to be horsewhipped.

It took just a couple of playful chomps for the bull terrier to sever the puppy’s retractable lead, rendering it a total loss. Fruitless to pelt him with acrimony: when a bull terrier does a bad thing the accompanying expression of comical delinquency disarms all rage.

Expensive things, these retractable leads. Sharon found a replacement on ebay. Buy it now, just £1 plus £2.95 p & p. “Bargain!” she cried.

It arrived a few days later. She pulled it from its padded envelope and we cursorily inspected it. I stepped on the pedal of the bin and she dropped it in, no word spoken. By way of consolation I revealed the German model I had bought from Pets R 4 Xmas just in case. £8.95. Best buy.

There will always be those who seek a cheap funeral.

There are the puritans, hair-shirted, often green, left-leaning types for whom even sackcloth and ashes are luxury lifestyle accessories. They resist the solicitous intervention of undertakers. The cardboard coffin is emblematic of their often joyless rejection of the follies of frippery.

You could generalise and say that it’s the educated middle class which inclines towards palaver-free, cheap funerals, and it’s the working class which likes to put on a bit of a show. This would be a mistake. It’s social confidence that empowers people to ignore what the neighbours think and say no, if that’s how they feel, to posh coffins and long black limousines.

To the puritans and the socially confident you can add the skint. All these will be attracted to a cheaper funeral. They may or may not suppose that funeral directors make more money than they ought.

None of us wants to pay more than we need. When a dead cheap funeral suddenly pops up, we all sit up and take notice.

Direct Funeral Services will do you a funeral for just £960 plus disbursements. Bargain!

How do they do it? I rang to find out. The helpful but clueless receptionist couldn’t tell me, so she put me through to the office. After a period of silence, the phone went dead.

If Sherlock Holmes were alive today he’d never get out of Google.

Go to Nominet. Type the domain name into WHOIS. Done.

Registrant: Richard Sage.

Pause for audible gasp.

Can this be the same Richard Sage who has been pursued for almost 15 years by BBC Radio 4’s John Waite for “ripping off staff, customers and National Health hospitals to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds”? The same Richard Sage who has been sentenced to a total 12 years in prison for fraud? The same Richard Sage of whom one of his previous employees said this: “It got to the point of going down to the crematorium or the local graveyard and collecting other people’s flowers – wreaths and bouquets – off another funeral, which wasn’t even to do with our company. Taking them back to the office, re-spraying them with water to make them look fresh. And placing them on the coffins – was our jobs”?

Even if this is a different Richard Sage, beware.

It’s a fact: margins in the funeral business are already very tight. Funerals are pretty good value. And, if money is tight, or you want a stripped down affair, almost every funeral director will offer you a basic funeral package as prescribed by the National Association of Funeral Directors, the price of which varies nationally.

You can negotiate a cheaper funeral than this by unpacking the package and buying fewer services. Do you, for example, need the funeral director’s staff to carry the coffin? Are you happy for the body to be left in the hospital mortuary until the day of the funeral and brought to the crematorium or cemetery in an estate car rather than a hearse? Many funeral directors will resist this sort of whittling; the best will happily collude.

There are very few crooks out there, but funeral directors are unregulated; there’s no way of keeping crooks out. So, if a funeral director is not a member of the NAFD or SAIF, tread carefully.