Pet Cemetaries

This is really a post about receiving bad service in the market place. My cat died recently. I had taken him in as a stray 11 years ago. My wife and I loved him and paid $1345 dollars to have him buried in a pet cemetary. Actually, the place we chose was a human cemetery that added a pet section about five years ago. The grave stone arrived about two weeks ago. All the letters were filled with very fine white sand so that you can barely read it. It really needs a pressure washing or something. It would be very hard to clean the depressed letters by hand. No other pet grave in the area has this problem. They all have clean graves with clean black letters on the stones. I realize that we will have to take over maintenance of the site, but this stone arrived in this condition and looks much worse than every stone around it. I'd like them to clean it at least once, especially in view of how much we paid.

The first time we saw the stone was on a Saturday when we visited the grave. The next morning (Sunday), I phoned the cemetery and they said that they would have it cleaned. When we went the next Saturday, they hadn't. The next morning (Sunday again), I phoned again and they promised again to have it pressure washed Monday. Today is Saturday and when we visited the grave, it clearly hadn't been touched. All the letters were still filled with the fine white sand it arrived with. That's twice they've promised to clean it and not done so.

I think it is very clear to these people that they already have our money. We aren't important now. I would like them to clean it off once, and I'll take over after that. What can I use to pressure them? There is no real issue of us doing business with them again so they don't care about repeat business. The Better Business Bureau is a pretty weak threat. I could give them bad reviews on Web sites, but there aren't that many Web reviews for cemeteries. I know because I just looked.

Yes, I could rent a pressure washer and do it myself. Yes, it's not that hard, but it annoys me to pay someone a lot of money and then have them deliver a dirty product and ignore my complaints. The truth is that they could laugh in my face and tell me that they would go out of their way to keep the stone dirty and I wouldn't have much recourse. I just want them to clean it one time. It would be difficult to clean those sunken letters by hand. They have promised twice to do it and then forgotten. Any idea what I could use to pressure the people? What does one do when members of the funeral industry do a bad job?