My darling mum died aged 65 on the 31st October after a brief illness. She was my best friend. We talked every other day and she filled my life with such love and joy.

My mum had paid for a funeral plan with an unscrupulous company, Prosperous Life, which took £4,000 of her money.

After an investigation by ‘The Guardian’, which revealed that the business operated a call centre with a workplace culture inspired by ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, where staff called themselves ‘lions’ and elderly customers ‘gazelles’ to be hunted, the government decided stricter financial rules were needed for this industry.

Prosperous Life refused to adopt these new rules to keep customers safe. The company then went into administration.

My mum’s funeral plan was never transferred over to a new company and the money is now gone.

She was a vulnerable person, who was suffering from the early stages of dementia, and was also dealing with the very debilitating complications of the health issues that would eventually take her life.

She couldn’t work, only received benefits and had no savings. She made sacrifices to be able to pay into the plan over many years so we wouldn’t be burdened when she passed.

I can’t describe the depth of my anger that she was treated in this way by such a predatory company.

This should have been a time for my family to grieve for her, but our grief has now been compounded by this revelation.

We are now desperately trying to raise money to cover her funeral costs so that we can give her the funeral service she wanted.

I feel such sadness and shame that I have to ask for help, but I feel so deeply sad that she couldn't bring herself to break this to me before she passed because she probably felt like she had failed us.

Any donation would be welcome. Even if you can’t donate, sharing this page would be greatly appreciated.