Heartbreaking: Family Has Paid Funeral Assistance Fund for 5 Years, But When Time Came to Use It for Brother's Funeral, They Were Turned Away and Told to Borrow from Others Instead
A family who paid into a funeral assistance fund for five years was denied access to their promised 20,000-30,000 baht benefit when their brother died, and told to borrow money instead despite their extreme poverty in Nakhon Rangsit.
On May 7, 2026, reporters received a complaint from Ladda (name withheld), 49, and her 78-year-old mother Prasit (name withheld), who suffers from cancer and kidney disease. They came to seek public sympathy after facing repeated hardships while arranging the funeral for their brother Shuchisd (name withheld), 55, who had recently passed away.
Ladda tearfully explained that their family is extremely poor. When their brother died, they didn't even have proper government documents, forcing them to seek help from a relief foundation to obtain copies of their national ID cards to submit to the Nakhon Rangsit Funeral Assistance Association. Their brother had been contributing to this fund for five to six years, with the expectation of receiving 20,000-30,000 baht as agreed upon to cover funeral expenses.
Yesterday, Ladda brought her seriously ill mother—suffering from both cancer and kidney disease—to the association office for a scheduled appointment, hoping to receive the funds to pay for the funeral arrangements. However, they were left waiting for hours under the intense heat. Her mother complained of thirst, back pain, and severe abdominal pain. The response they received was disheartening: officials claimed that "Decha," the only person authorized to make decisions, was unavailable and unreachable, and was supposedly in Chiang Mai.
"What hurt our family the most was when the official told us to go borrow money from others to pay first," Ladda said. "These days, people won't even lend a hundred baht. Where are we supposed to get money to pay the temple's funeral bills? This money is genuinely ours—we've been paying for years. But when we finally need it, it's like we're begging at their doorstep."
The body of Shuchisd is currently lying in state at Rangsit Temple, with the funeral rites scheduled for today (May 7) at 4:00 PM. The family remains anxious about how they will cover the temple's various expenses. Ladda emphasized that they are not asking for the entire amount at once—they simply need the initial funds they were promised to lay their brother's spirit to rest.
