Growing complaints over headstone delays at local business

ATLANTA — More families are coming forward saying a casket and gravestone business took their money and left them with nothing.

“Just promises. That's all he's selling -- promises," Stanley Jones said.

Jones said he paid $900 for a headstone for his mother. Nearly a year later, he said southwest Atlanta's Best Buy Caskets and Urns on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive has yet to fulfill that order.

“Three, four months went on and not anything. I go back by there and they just don't have it,” Jones said.

Jones is the latest in a string of people who said the company took their money and never delivered. Just last week, Carla Bashir showed Channel 2’s Eric Philips her paperwork, indicating she paid more than $400 for a headstone in October, but she still hasn't received it.

Channel 2’s Erin Coleman called Best Buy Casket owner Sean Moorer with Jones on Tuesday.

“It was other people in here, working employees, and that's who they gave the money to, and I was not aware of it until months later when they came in,” Moorer said.

“It’s a bad time to bother people. Man, it really is when people are having deaths in the family,” Jones said.

Moorer said he's had financial problems and will repay the money at some point.

Coleman asked Moorer when Jones could expect his money back. Moorer replied, "It’s a struggle."

Jones, meanwhile, isn't convinced that he'll ever get his money.

“I won't put my last breath on him paying me back,” Jones said.

Jones decided to buy another headstone for his mother just so her grave wouldn’t be bare.

“I’d rather pay $1,700 and get something than pay $900 and get nothing,” said Albertine Clements.

Clements echoes Jones' sentiments after dealing with the same company.

“I feel like (I’ve) been ripped off,”she said.

Clements said she’s out more than $1,000 after buying a gravestone for her mother.

"(Moorer) told me it would be ready in two weeks. Two weeks went by, two more weeks, then a month went by. Two months went by, three months went by (and) I still didn't get (any)results from him," she said.

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Now six months later, still nothing, she told Coleman.

Moorer looked shocked when Coleman also addressed Clements' claims during her visit. Clements is now among the three families accusing Moorer of taking their money without anything to show for it.

Moorer insisted that Clements' mother's headstone had arrived and showed her where it is was located in the business. He also said it did not take long for the headstone to arrive as the families contend.

"They're being promised to get (the headstones) in a couple weeks and it's taken months," Coleman explained to Moorer.

"Well, I do apologize for that. We're a small company," Moorer replied.

"I've been on hard times since I opened this business," added Moorer.

Moorer said he will stop taking gravestone orders until he can catch up with the ones that haven't been filled yet. He said he doesn't know how long it will take to fill those orders.

As for Bashir, who spoke to Channel 2 last week, Moorer said she will get her husband's gravestone on Wednesday. Moorer said he'll give Jones his money back, although he doesn't have the money right now.

WSBTV