Suit filed against funeral home

WEST PALM BEACH — A class action lawsuit has been filed in which potentially thousands of customers who purchased "pre-need" contracts for burial services at Rubin Memorial have been defrauded by the funeral home in its attempt to overcharge them for out-of-state costs related to burial services, an action that is prohibited by Florida law.

The class action alleges that Rubin Memorial created entirely false invoices, often doubling the prices of estimated services, and passed them off to consumers, while pocketing the difference. The scheme involved Rubin Memorial scanning the invoices received from out-of-state funeral homes and altering the invoices on a computer.

"It is astonishing that Rubin Memorial has conducted business in this manner, and taking advantage of people when they are at their most vulnerable," Ted Leopold said in a release, managing partner of consumer justice law firm Leopold~Kuvin, P.A., in Palm Beach Gardens.