Up in Smoke: Legacy Cremation’s Deception and the Families Left Behind

When Mya’s father passed away last fall in Rhode Island, she told me, her family turned to Legacy Cremation Services because it appeared to be a local, affordable provider. What followed was a nightmare.

The final price was more than double the initial quote. But that was the least of it.

After her father’s body was picked up at the hospital, weeks passed with no word about his remains. Calls to Legacy went unanswered or unreturned. Then, after looking into the company more closely, Mya was shocked to discover that Legacy wasn’t a local cremation provider at all. Rather, it was a middleman, a third-party broker that outsourced services to other funeral homes and crematories.

She began frantically calling local funeral homes, trying to track down her father’s remains. A sympathetic funeral director advised her to contact the hospital morgue to pull the records on who picked up the body. And that’s how Mya finally identified the actual cremation provider – and was able to get her father’s ashes – more than a month after her father had died.

Mya said the funeral home told her the remains had not been released because Legacy had not paid them – and that it was holding the remains of multiple individuals for the same reason – despite the fact that her family had already paid Legacy in full.

To add insult to injury, when she finally spoke with Legacy’s owner, Anthony “AJ” Damiano, he was, in her words, “rude, disrespectful, and mocked me during a very difficult time.”

Mya’s experience is not an isolated incident. It is part of a pattern of complaints against Legacy from consumers who say the company misled them into believing Legacy was a local operation and then charged them more than they were initially quoted.

In May, TINA.org, together with the Consumer Federation of America and the Funeral Consumers Alliance, filed a complaint against Legacy with the FTC and DOJ demanding action. The complaint documented more than 60,000 Legacy webpages violating a 2023 federal court order permanently barring the company from misrepresenting itself as a local provider.

TINA.org also found that Legacy advertised cremation starting at $995-$1,395 while burying a mandatory $1,895 fee – leaving countless consumers blindsided when the final bill arrived.

More than a dozen states have also pursued Legacy with cease-and-desist orders, fines and license revocations. Yet Legacy’s deceptive practices continued unabated. However, one day after TINA.org filed its complaint – copying Legacy – the entire Legacy website went dark, and it has remained down ever since, suggesting that this time, the pressure may finally have worked.

The power of consumer tips

Over the years, TINA.org has received more than 10,000 consumer tips, sparking numerous investigations and complaints to regulators that in turn have forced many companies to cease their deceptive ways. In fact, TINA.org’s investigation into Legacy’s – leading to its abrupt reversal after decades of deception – was sparked by a previous consumer tip.

Mya, who contacted us after seeing our complaint, said her goal was “to help prevent other families from going through this experience.”

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