West Virginia Code 47-14-10 – Solicitation
(a) Any contract seller or agent or employee or person acting in behalf of any such person may not:
Terms Used In West Virginia Code 47-14-10
- Burial goods: means all merchandise supplied in regard to burial, or entombment in a mausoleum or inurnment in a columbarium, but does not include those services actually performed by a cemetery acting only as such, or the sale by any person of cemetery lots, land or interests therein, services incidental thereto, or the sale by any person of markers, memorials, monuments, equipment, crypts, urns, burial vaults or vaults constructed or to be constructed in a mausoleum or columbarium. See West Virginia Code 47-14-2
- Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
- Division: means the consumer protection division of the office of the Attorney General. See West Virginia Code 47-14-2
- Funeral goods: means those items of merchandise sold or offered for sale directly to the public by any person which will be used in connection with a funeral or alternative for final disposition of human remains, but does not include those services actually performed by a cemetery acting only as such, or the sale by the cemetery of cemetery lots, land or interest therein, services incidental thereto, or the sale by any person of markers, memorials, monuments, equipment, crypts, urns, burial vaults or vaults constructed or to be constructed in a mausoleum or columbarium. See West Virginia Code 47-14-2
- Funeral services: means those services usually performed by a licensed funeral establishment or director including, but not limited to, care and preparation of human remains and coordinating rites and ceremonies in connection with the disposition of human remains carried out at the request of any individual responsible for funeral and disposition arrangements. See West Virginia Code 47-14-2
- Person: means a natural person, partnership, firm, association or corporation, including any agent or employee thereof residing in or doing business in this state who is engaged in the selling of, making available of or providing of preneed funeral contracts, as defined herein, or who is the recipient of funds paid for such purpose. See West Virginia Code 47-14-2
- Personal residence: means any residential building in which one temporarily or permanently maintains his abode including, but not limited to, hotels, motels, apartments, nursing homes, convalescent homes, homes for the aged and public and private institutions. See West Virginia Code 47-14-2
- Preneed funeral contract: means any contract, agreement, mutual understanding, series or combination of contracts, agreements and mutual understandings, including a contract that is financed by the purchase of an insurance policy or annuity, under which, for a specified consideration paid in advance of death in a lump sum or by installments, a person promises to furnish or make available or provide funeral services, funeral goods or burial goods for use at a time determinable by the death of the contract beneficiary who is either named or implied therein. See West Virginia Code 47-14-2
- seller: means a person, his agent or his employee who sells, makes available or provides preneed funeral contracts. See West Virginia Code 47-14-2
(1) Directly or indirectly call upon individuals or persons in hospitals, rest homes, nursing homes or similar institutions for the purpose of soliciting preneed funeral contracts or making funeral or final disposition arrangements without first having been specifically requested by such person to do so;
(2) Directly or indirectly employ any agent, assistant, employee, independent contracting person or any other person to call upon individuals or persons in hospitals, rest homes, nursing homes or similar institutions for the purpose of soliciting preneed funeral contracts or making funeral or final disposition arrangements without first having been specifically requested by such person to do so;
(3) Solicit relatives of persons whose death is apparently pending or whose death has recently occurred for the purpose of providing funeral services, final disposition, burial or funeral goods for such person;
(4) Solicit or accept or pay any consideration for recommending or causing a dead human body to be provided funeral services and funeral and burial goods by specific persons or the services of a specific crematory, mausoleum or cemetery except where such arrangement is the subject of a preneed funeral contract;
(5) Solicit by telephone call or by visit to a personal residence, unless such solicitation has been previously requested by the person solicited or by a family member residing at such residence.
(b) Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, nothing in this article shall be construed to restrict the right of a person to lawfully advertise, to use direct mail or otherwise communicate in a manner not within the above prohibition of solicitation or to solicit the business of anyone responding to such communication or otherwise initiating discussion of the goods or services being offered.
(c) Nothing herein shall be construed to prohibit general advertising.
(d) Anyone making a personal or written solicitation for a preneed funeral contract shall, at the very first instance, divulge the real reason for the contract or solicitation.
(e) The division may promulgate legislative rules regulating the solicitation of preneed contracts by certificate holders or registrants to protect the public from solicitation practices which utilize undue influence or which take undue advantage of a person's ignorance or emotional vulnerability.