Lately I’ve received a couple of e-mails from people concerned about adoption fraud. Both of them asked me to alert my readers to common scams in the adoption world. Here’s a summary of their stories:
The ‘heartfelt plea’ scam
Story #1 comes from a 28-year-old single mother of one who has completed her adoption home study. She has unsuccessfully been attempting to adopt independently for some time. She has also gone through social services, but has discovered that the social workers prefer older, married, wealthier parents.
Lately she has been inundated with e-mails from “Africa,” from so-called parents claiming they want to place their child with her but need money for a ticket to the U.S.
The ‘re-routed adoption fee’ scam
Story #2 comes from a woman and her husband who accepted a referral of 2-month-old twin girls from a third-world country a year ago. Upon receiving the referral, the parents-to-be traveled to the country and spent five days with them in a hotel getting to know them.
Two months later, they received notice that one of their babies was quite sick and in the hospital. The mom-to-be caught the first flight to that country the same day and was en route when she learned that their daughter had died in the hospital. The mom visited the hospital and noted that since she had met her daughter two months earlier, the baby had been severely neglected.
Four months later, their adoption coordinator informed the couple that the organization’s policy was not to refund their money for the baby who died, but to give them a new referral instead. Later they were told that all their adoption fees had gone to care for their dying daughter. However, the orphanage director in the country informed them that their adoption fees were being used to build a new orphanage, rather than to care for the children.
Reflections
Both these stories are heartbreaking. Unfortunately, they are fairly typical examples of scams perpetrated on would-be adoptive parents. I’m grateful that the parents in both instances are aware that they’re easy targets for con artists and are treading very carefully through the adoption process. Being alert to the possibility of adoption scams is the first step in combating them.
Advice
If you receive polite e-mails from a “mother in father” in Nigeria or Congo or some other African country begging you to adopt their child, delete them. I, too, receive these e-mails on a weekly basis and know that many of my fellow adoption bloggers do, as well. They’re scams. Period. IGNORE THEM. If you plan to adopt, do so through legal channels, by using the services of a respected and highly-recommended licensed adoption agency, facilitator, social worker or adoption attorney.
In the same vein, demand to receive an accounting for all adoption fees you pay up front, before you complete your home study (Note: you can’t always do this with domestic adoption, but you usually can with international adoption).
Organizations that handle intercountry adoptions almost always have their complete fee schedule available to prospective parents. If you’re concerned about contingencies in case of your child’s death (before you bring him or her home), get it in writing, on a contract.
Readers, please chime in here and help others learn from you:
- What experiences have you had with adoption fraud?
- How did you get sucked into a scam situation?
- How did you get out of it?
- What advice do you have for prospective parents who want to avoid getting scammed?
Related posts:
How to Avoid Unethical Adoption Agencies
The Pros and Cons of Independent Adoption
Book Review: The Cruelest Con: The Guide for a S.a.F.E. Adoption Journey
For more news and information about adoption, visit www.laurachristianson.com, and check out my Exploring Adoption bookstore.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi, Laura, thanks for writing this post, as everyone should be vigilant about adoption fraud.
Have you heard of the Evan B. Donaldson study on first parent rights? I’d be interested in your thoughts about it, perhaps it could be a follow-on post to this one.
The report can be downloaded here:
http://adoptioninstitute.org/research/2006_11_birthparent_wellbeing.php
Thanks, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
December 12th, ‘06
DEFAMATION is the terminology used to describe the “demonization” of un-wed mothers and natural mothers whose child[ren] was/were taken from them by adoption-related FRAUDULENCE–which includes lawyers et al utilizing the tactics of MISREPRESENTATION, DECEIT, FRAUDULENT CONCEALMENT and the like–for which BLAME also should be cast on adoption lawyers like David McConkie who helped Colleen Burnham of Chidren’s Aid Society of Utah rip my son away from me and those many other lawyers who are corrupt like the one aforenamed. Taking a mother’s child by the FRAUDULENCE–of fraudulent concealment, misrepresentation, deceit, forgery and other pretexts–ALSO is FRAUD!
Other adoption-related fraud executed against un-wed mothers whose child most likely will be born illegitimate includes COERCION, DURESS, and TERRORIZATION. David McConkie and Colleen Burnham both terrorized me to sign the Affidavit and Release form they’d shoved in front of me that neither one of them then never bothered to legalize which means that since the Affidavit and Release document was not legal then no adoption was transacted pursuant to my son.
Afterward David McConkie continued to falsely accuse me of killing a child he claimed I’d had prior to my son he et al snatched away from me. FALSELY ACCUSING me constitutes DEFAMATION by LIBEL and SLANDER of which David McConkie et al does both.
Other lawyers also defame other mothers from whom they took/take a child or children then transacted [an] adoption[s] for. STOP defaming natural mothers because everybody knows it’s a ruse used by pro-adoption people including those women and men who take our children into their custody to cover up crimes committed not only by lawyers like David McConkie and so-called social workers like Colleen Burnham but also judges et al.
And stop being one-sided when it comes to adoption–like women and men who adopt think they are “poor pitiful you who couldn’t biologically pro-create” but since all you mother and father want-to-bes have money you can pay lawyers like David McConkie to find you a child just like David McConkie found my child to adopt out and make money from–because you all think you’re the only ones suffering adoption-related stress and trauma. You’re NOT!
Your sense of ownership of our children borders on criminal because you’re too eager to take possession of our children. As soon as you get them you declare our children yours, and of course even though you know this isn’t true still you persist in taking ownership of our children within the first hour or less because lawyers like David McConkie coach you to, with no regard for the mother who gave birth to the child[ren] you then become ingrates about procuring for adoption.
You all behave shamefully! And ignoring us mothers whose child[ren] you adopt worsens your immorality!
Adoption-related fraud is visited on everybody involved in any given adoption, of a minor child, which makes only one more of the many issues lawyers who transact adoptions don’t want anyone to know. Since they have the specialized knowledge this makes lawyers of adoption the most responsible and therefore legally liable.
In my and my son’s adoption-related case there are criminal violations in addition to tortious offenses for which David McConkie and his law firm can be sued including fraud in its multiple degrees. Next time you try harvesting un-wed mothers for their usually illegitimate-born babies to adopt by demonizing them as adoption scammers preying on vulnerable couples who can’t biologically pro-create you also should remember that infertile (and NOT so) people along with their duplicitous and double-dealing lawyers easily can be described as adoption predators.
You people build your families by destroying other families like mine. Lawyer David McConkie destroyed my family to adoptionally create another one. Here’s the reality about adoption–that goes with all the adoption-related fraud–think about it!
Kathy Caudle
Natural Mother
Hi my name is Melissa.I have gone through just this i believe.The persons that are invole i cant say there names do to im finding out that the Adoptive mother is committing fraud.She has Three of my childrenand 2 of them are 18 and 17 and one to be 16 in Augaust.My three older kids want a relastionship with me and doing so and the Adoptive Mother we have found out is collecting SSI & welfare for my older son 18 teen.And now she is trying to get my daughter to leave her home cause she want a relastionship with us.I need help to get my thrid son out of her care cause she is messing him up as well please advise me and what can be done to stop her from hurtting my children anymore and lying to the saying that she not getting moneys from them that she is cleary getting.I need to protect them from anymore harm being done to them from this adoptive mother…