Family blindsided after marketing company, funeral home cash in on father's obituary

Before pancreatic cancer took his life in April, John Rothwell made his dying wishes clear: if mourners wanted to donate to a cause in his name, the money should go to an educational fund he and his family set up.

Instead, family and friends unwittingly paid for a product that puts money into the pockets of companies profiting from grief, says his son.

"It's really alarming," Nathan Rothwell, 36, of Toronto told Go Public.

"My family felt taken advantage of. We were obviously in a pretty vulnerable situation, anybody who's lost somebody they love knows that."

Rothwell knew the obituary would be on the website of the Mackey Funeral Home in Lindsay, Ont., so he made sure it included a request for mourners to consider donating to the educational fund, in lieu of flowers. 

What no one told the family is that Frontrunner — a Kingston, Ont.,-based marketing company that runs the funeral home's website and many others across the country — uses obituaries to sell what it calls "memorial" trees and other products.  

The obituary included links that said "Plant a tree in the memory of John Rothwell" and led to a different website where mourners paid for products the family knew nothing about, says Nathan.