A parent's funeral is the last chance for children to show their filial piety. Naturally, no one wants to pay unnecessarily large sums to cover the cost of a memorial service. However, in the Chinese tradition, bargaining with the funeral company may be deemed disrespectful to the dead parent. Faced with the pressure of being called a non-filial child, many people choose to accept whatever price the funeral company demands.

A recent report by the Wuhan Morning Post based in central China's Hubei province showed that some of the funeral service companies are indeed making huge profits out of the business. Some even charge ten times more than the price which is supposed to be.
An article in the Beijing News echos the report, and says reaping staggering profits from mourning families is immoral.

The article points out that the funeral industry is actually monopoly. It's easy for people to open a funeral accessory store, but very few people can acquire the authorization to open a cemetery. None of the cemeteries to date are privately owned, so no market competition can result from this monopoly.

The newspaper questions that if the price level is too high, why don't price regulation departments intercede on behalf of the families. It is the price regulation department's responsibility to control funeral companies' unreasonable profit margins, says the newspaper.