Grieving dad says Toronto funeral home wasn’t transparent about 10% cut of memorial donations

A grieving family is accusing a well-known Toronto funeral home of a lack of transparency after realizing they unwittingly signed off on the home’s foundation taking a 10 per cent cut of their son’s memorial donations.

Raziel Zisman’s 19-year-old son, Liam, passed away last January. He says hours after losing his only child, he made arrangements via Zoom for the teen’s funeral with the head of Benjamin’s Park Memorial Chapel, Michael Benjamin.

Zisman told CityNews that Benjamin encouraged him to direct any incoming donations to a memorial fund held by the funeral home’s charitable arm, The Benjamin Foundation — a service the home offers as a place for a family to temporarily park donations until they can properly select a charity.

Zisman agreed, signing the papers via DocuSign that day. He says he didn’t realize that the contract stipulated a 10 per cent “administration fee” on all incoming donations.

“I had lost my only son a few hours earlier. I was in no mood to read the small print,” he said. “I completely trusted Michael Benjamin to treat me appropriately.”

Zisman adds that even before his son’s obituary was finalized, he advised the funeral home of the two charities he wished to list on his memorial page.

The home listed those charities — but still directed donations through their memorial fund.

Ten days later, Zisman found out that the fund had grown to over $5,000 and that the foundation was taking a 10 per cent fee.

After unsuccessfully attempting to cancel the contract, the family filed a complaint with the Bereavement Authority of Ontario (BAO). The BAO sided with the family — writing in part that “the 10 per cent fee was not transparent to the consumer nor to any potential donor,” and “it is apparent that the Licensee had ample opportunity on several occasions to mention the 10 per cent fee but neglected to do so.”

“So if you donate $100 dollars, the foundation takes 10 bucks. If you donate a thousand dollars, they take 100 bucks. It adds up,” said BAO spokesperson David Brazeau.

The regulator has since ordered the funeral home to refund the Zismans and pay back all the administration fees collected through the Benjamin Foundation over the past six years.

It has also ordered the home to make the fee more visible in its listings. So far, the home has not complied.

Michael Benjamin declined an on-camera interview, but in a statement to CityNews, he said the fee only covers 25 per cent of the foundation’s operating cost, with the Benjamin family kicking in the rest.

He also states: “In the case of the Zismans, as per my recollection, even after they had selected their charities of choice and were aware of the administrative fee, they chose to use to the foundation to hold funds.”

The funeral home is now fighting the BAO’s decision in court, arguing that the BAO has no authority on the issue since the Foundation, as a charity, is a separate entity from the funeral home itself.

Zisman says the charities were close to his son’s heart, and all of the money should’ve gone to them.

“My son was a cancer survivor … and he donated to two charities that organized summer camps for kids with cancer,” he said.

“That money should have been spent this summer taking kids that are not well to camp. And yet it’s sitting in this foundation’s bank account.”

Zisman says the whole situation has exacerbated his family’s pain.

“We suffered a tragedy, and now we have a bad dream inside a nightmare.”

Photo provided by family.

To honour Liam, the family is organizing an online Sustainable Resource Development conference at Brock University.

Liam was studying environmental geoscience at Brock and had just finished his first term when he passed away.

The conference will run between October 3-7.