Funeral H Marx

Good day

In February 2015 my mother passed away and we went to Doves, in Gezina (Steve Biko road) to do the neccesary funeral arrangements. With all the support and good service from Doves everything went well.

Now in November 2023 my father passed away and with the passed service received we decided to use Doves (Gezina, Steve Biko road) again for the funeral arrangements. This time we can't agree that we received the same treatment as in the past.

We were not kept up to date of the arrangements. No one contacted us of what was going on or what was needed. We had to phone everytime from our side just to find out what was going on.

Nothing was done as we asked:

Flower requested to be white only. We received all the colours. Quality of the flowers was also very poor and charges very high.

The booklets was only on normal white paper and not at all as we requested with a collage of pictures. This is poor quality.

No info sheet was given to fill the message, bible verse and songs to be used in church. We had to create our own one to give through.

At the funeral the guy refused to give the water and juice supp**** before hand and it was not even cold. How can you serve your guest warm water and juice on a hot sunny day?

Our Dad requested to be cremated. No one contacted us to ask whether we would like a wooden box or gave examples of types of boxes we can choose from.

Our dad was also cremated a week ago.......still no contact of when we will receive his ashes.

We waited a week to receive the death certificate. Because of this we had to pay the funeral cash.

The lady also said in the meeting that the funeral cover would pay out R25 000. Now she comes with a amount of R2500. She also said the claim takes a day. This is now a week after the death certificate was received and when we phone the agent, she still haven't done a claim.

On the invoice received there is a food voucher as we have not received any voucher regarding this but is charge for it.

I am sorry, but this is not the way to treat someone who just lost a loved one. This just shows me that Doves does not have respect for the dead. At least you need to be at good service and respect and submit to the customer request.

I won't concider to use Doves in the future again and also won't recommend anyone to do so.

Please take this matter up with all seriousness, because if this is how all customers is treated, I do see no hope for the future, for this company.