Adoption Scams: How to Recognize and Prevent

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Unknown Speaker  0:00  
Welcome to Creating a Family talk about foster adoptive and kinship care. I'm Dawn Davenport. I am both the host of this show as well as the director of the nonprofit creating a family.org. Today we're going to be talking about adoption scams, how to recognize them and then how to prevent them. We will be talking with Colleen Quinn she runs the adoption and surrogacy Law Center as part of her Quinn Law Centers in Richmond, Virginia, and has been practicing adoption law for over 34 years. She is a past president and Trustee of the Academy of adoption and assisted reproductive attorneys. And she is a recipient of a congressional Angel and adoption Award. She has over 300 presentations and publications and family formation law, including she is the co author of the last five editions of the Virginia CLE adoption procedures and forms. And I would say this is certainly something we should mention. She is a past board member for creating a family. Welcome, Colleen to creating your family. Thank you so much, Dawn, I'm so happy to be here. All right. The way we're going to organize this is we're going to be talking about four general categories of adoption scam. First, we'll talk about those scams that are against adoptive parents by expected or supposedly pregnant women, to those by brokers or facilitators who are not licensed and may not be legal. Three those by adoption agencies and attorneys, against adoptive parents, and for those done by adoptive parents against expectant or birth parents. So let's start with the first one. And that is adoption, scams, frauds or whatever, against adoptive parents by expected or supposedly expectant people. So what are some of the typical adoption scams that you see perpetrated by expectant Women Against prospective adoptive parents? Yep. So Don, one thing I would say in my 34 years of practice is that most people are honest, most placing parents are honest, most adoptive parents are honest. But we always try to make sure adoptive parents recognize that there are a small percentage of scammers out there. And it's unfortunate because you've got to be careful. And when we are looking at expectant or placing parents, the scammers generally fall into two categories, either financial scammers that are looking for money, or emotional scammers and the emotional scammers aren't looking for any money or anything. They're just a little on the crazy side. They're looking for connection, it feels like I want to be important in your life. I want you to be you know, all into me and focusing on me. Yeah, there are people that need attention and are attention seeking typically. Okay, first, can you explain that? Let's start with the second one, which is emotional scammer? What would a typical emotional? How does that play out the typical type of emotional scammer done by expected or supposedly expected women? Yes, so these folks typically are not even pregnant. Sometimes they're not even female. And they're just folks that I think probably have some mental instability. By way of example, we had one emotional scammer out of Tennessee, who actually had gone through eight prospective adoptive families. And normally, these folks tell all sorts of outrageous stories like this one was saying her parents died in a fire and she would keep the prospective adoptive parents on the phone at all hours of the night. And she really, she wouldn't move to a video conversation or an in person meeting, which we always recommend getting to a video, you know, FaceTime, or zoom or whatever getting to that video call and then getting to an in person meeting. And if you can't go in person, then we can arrange an adoption social worker, or we can arrange an attorney to meet with that person. I mean, there are even websites too, that sell fake ultrasounds and fake pregnancy bellies. And these, these folks, I can't explain it. They just will monopolize folks time and in this case, with the one out of Tennessee, my clients networked with some of the other families, and they eventually were able to turn this person over to the police and the person actually had a past criminal record and a history of mental instability. And so it's unfortunate, but there are a small percentage of just crazy people out there. Yeah, just Yeah, bad actors. Yeah. Okay. So the financial scammers, they usually can be controlled because we tell anybody looking to adopt do not pay any money at all whatsoever until you consult with a lawyer and you know, what the applicable state law is and what are permissible expenses to pay. But we still do know of a small percentage of cases where a placing parent will work with more than one family at a time without the other family knowing and both are helping with living expenses. So in those cases, we're always trying to control any money

Unknown Speaker  5:00  
Any that gets paid and try to pay it directly to, you know, the apartment rental office give a Kroger card rather than cash. And the Academy of adoption assisted reproduction attorneys, we do have a kind of fraud alert system where we can let folks in the academy know that we're working with a particular placing parents out of which state and city. But that's not foolproof, because not all adoptive families are working with an academy fellow. So it's not the easiest thing to control, the best way to control it is really by making sure that we carefully control the payments. And if the rental office calls and says, Hey, we got two payments for this month. Well, that's one way of uncovering that. Maybe that person's working with two separate adoptive families. And are there ways to prevent being emotionally scammed, we can recognize those emotional scammers mainly because they won't move to a video meeting. And then to an in person meeting. It's normally just with text messages and chats and phone calls. And by not moving to the next step by not providing an address and filling out the background forms of providing a HIPPA release so we can get their medical records, we can kind of identify that that person is not serious about doing an adoption plan. Gotcha. Okay. They're just some things as you're trying to move to more certainty. They're resistant of it. Exactly, exactly. I mean, it can be all the way up to the point where they're supposedly at the hospital, I had one emotional scammer the adoptive parents had hired me to handle the adoption and she was supposedly going to the hospital I called the hospital. She was not there. They said maybe she was under an alias. I texted her, you know, what name did you admit yourself to to the hospital? And she says, Oh, I'm not at that hospital. I'm at this other hospital. And she had us going for a number of hours before I just called the adoptive parents. And I said, she's a scammer. I'm so sorry. But she's, she's scamming us. So heartbreaking when that happens nearly as Yeah. Alright, that makes sense. Okay.

Unknown Speaker  7:11  
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Unknown Speaker  7:55  
What should we adoptive parents know about and identify birth fathers. And that is a fairly common occurrence. And it's a problematic one for adoptive parents. So how often do you see that and then why is it problematic? So we see a lot of cases where the placing mother says that she doesn't know who their birth father is. And one of the things that we want to do is make sure that she owns her adoption plan, like we're always deferential. So I have to explain, look at you want this placement to work. And in order for this placement to work. We need to make sure that everything is disclosed, we need to know about any and all potential birth fathers that are out there. I've got really two interesting illustrative real life stories that I'll quickly tell. That's helpful. Yeah, so these war stories, I mean, you know, you live and you learn and you keep learning.

Unknown Speaker  8:52  
So the first one, the baby was placed with a family where the adoptive father was a big muckety muck at a huge law firm in Richmond, Virginia. And so it was important for me to do a good job representing the placing mom and the adoptive parents attorney put trust in me to do a good job. And so the placing mom was she lived several hours away. And I told her I said we need to get the birth father, who it took a while for her to tell me who it was. But then she told me it was her ex husband. And they shared a five year old together and that he now lived with a girlfriend, and that he did not want the girlfriend to know that she had gotten pregnant that they were still having an affair even though they were divorced. I said okay, well, he needs to sign the consent paperwork. And I sent her the consent paperwork. And she said, yeah, yeah, I'm making sure that he signs it. And then we had the first court hearing she was supposed to come to and she says, Well, I lost his paperwork. And of course, my spidey sense starts going up a little bit. And so I resend the paperwork to her. We had to continue the court hearing the next court hearing is coming up

Unknown Speaker  10:00  
and her car breaks down. And she still hasn't sent me his paperwork. my spidey sense is really going off now. So I pick up the phone and call the guy. And I said, Excuse me, but your ex wife is doing this adoption plan with you. And I've been waiting to get this paperwork and he goes, my ex wife is pregnant. And I'm like, Yes, you share your five year old back and forth. Didn't you notice she was pregnant? Oh, no, no, no, she wears really big dresses and coats over her. He goes, I didn't know she was and he goes, where's the baby? I said, the baby's been with his family for two months. He goes, I'm coming to get that baby. And he was well employed, well capable and taking care of the child. And so I ended up having to call the other adoption attorney and saying, I'm really sorry, but we were played. And she played us, you know, kind of carrying us along that her ex husband knew about the pregnancy and was doing the adoption plan with her when in fact, the ex husband knew nothing about it. So that was my first like, Okay, I need to follow my spidey sense. But the next story is even worse. So this one, I get the case from an adoption agency. And the birth mom had filled out paperwork. And when it said list, the birth father she put unknown. So I get the case in and we need to have a separate attorney for the birth mom and I tell the birth mom's attorney, please ask her what she means by unknown. Well, she says I put unknown because it was one of two guys. It's either the guy I live with, or it's a guy I used to be with who's now in prison. So under Virginia law, we have to send notice to each of them of their rights. And the next thing I get is a phone call from this screaming woman who is screaming at me, saying We thought that baby died. She went to the hospital. She told us it was stillborn. And it was cremated. And we had a funeral for that baby.

Unknown Speaker  11:53  
Yes. And I'm sitting there listening to this poor woman screaming at me. And I'm like, Listen, I'm so sorry. I represent the adoptive parents. And she's like what adoptive parents. And it turned out again, that child had been in the adoptive parents home for almost two months, nobody had initially asked what was meant by unknown. And in this case, the placing mom actually had completely lied to the father that she lived with went to the hospital, had the baby placed a baby for adoption, but then did tell them that the baby was born stillborn and had been cremated. So from those lessons, I always learned to just do a little bit more, ask a little bit more, dig a little bit deeper. So what prospective adoptive parents should know is that birth fathers have rights. If the birth father is identified, it is in everyone's best interest, if you can push and find out, even if you're narrowing it down to two or three. Yes. So what if the woman says, you know, look, I honestly don't know, I was going through a tough time in my life and was just using a lot of things that I shouldn't. I was using men to numb my pain or whatever. Right? So what happens then she doesn't know. And let's say we could say, well, how just give me the names of everyone, and we will reach out to them. But what if she says, and there's reasons that sometimes moms want to do that they don't want the child being placed with that person, or they're afraid of retribution against them. So anyway, what happens then let's say you're not able you, you follow your spidey senses, but it doesn't get you anywhere, because you can't get an identify birth father, right. So you know, it's state law dependent from state to state in terms of the way that the birth father's rights are going to be terminated. But, for example, I had a case where a 14 year old girl was running with about 15 Guys in a gang and was terrified she had no idea which one was the Father. And at that point, we explained to the court that, you know, she was terrified of identifying any single one of them as she really didn't know which one was the dad. And at that point, the judge was like, Yes, I think we can say that the birth father's identity is not reasonably ascertainable. That the just too many possible guys out there. And in some cases, I've had a placing mom that that it was at a party and the guy's name was John. And that's all she knows. That's all she could find out. Or it was at the back of a bar. It was in the bathroom at the back of the bar. And you know, the guy's name was Paul, and that was it. So there are some situations where the place a mom is pretty embarrassed about the situation is truthful about it. And we really can't determine who the possible Earth father is. And in those situations, as long as we know, we've gotten to the truth of it, but sometimes dad, I feel like I'm taking a deposition with my own client, you know, and I had one where she said, I don't know who he is, I don't know where he is. And I kept asking questions, I kept asking questions, how did the conception happened? And it turns out, it was a guy that she worked with at the same restaurant and she was still working with him. So

Unknown Speaker  15:00  
Sometimes we do have to keep asking those additional questions to kind of flush it out, I always try to make sure that they own their adoption plan. It's like, if you want your plan to work, then we can't have this person coming out of the woodwork and disrupting your plan. And we have to know whether this person is truly capable of being identified or not capable of being identified. And that does vary from state to state. I mean, there are some states like Utah where you don't have to identify the person even if you know who they are. So it varies dramatically in terms of each state's law. And some states have a putative father registry, where you can list the potential father or father's in this registry, and then it's up to the Father to if he thinks he could have impregnated somebody to check that to see, right. And, you know, not all states have registries, Virginia's got kind of where I'm out of has a quasi registry. If we know who the father is, and where he is, we have to give him notice of his right to register. And in the pure registry states, you don't have to give the guy any notice of his right to register, he just needs to know that he's supposed to register. Yeah, if you have sex, unprotected sex with a woman, and you're gonna care deeply, if she gets pregnant and you want to parent that child, you have an obligation to it's a bit of a force, because I don't know how many people actually do that.

Unknown Speaker  16:27  
Right, especially sex equals notice, but unless they teach that to young men in a sex ed, it's starting in fifth or sixth grade, they're really not gonna know they're supposed to register, you know? Yeah, exactly. Yes.

Unknown Speaker  16:40  
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Unknown Speaker  17:12  
So what are some ways that adoptive parents or prospective adoptive parents can prevent becoming a victim of an adoption scam or an adoption fraud? You've mentioned a couple one and system video calls and then move to in person meetings. That of course, it's not foolproof, but it gives you some protection. As for HIPAA release to see the medical records, never provide cash directly to the expectant parents pay the provider directly. We're going to talk in a minute about working with a reputable adoption agency or an adoption attorney. But would that also be one that would help prevent somebody who's who knows the ropes and is not as emotionally involved? Yes, definitely consulting with a experienced adoption attorney early on, that can help identify some of those red flags is critical. And then I have a whole list of just kind of red flag items, one of them is watching. For the placing parent making statements such as wanting to name the child. I mean, that doesn't necessarily always mean that they're not going to place but it's just one of those kind of yellow flags, at least that concerns me, maybe they do want to give the baby a special name knowing that the adoptive parents are going to change that name. But if they're making statements about wanting to take the baby home for a few days, first, we're watching for signs about whether they're really truly committed to the placement and the phraseology, a lot of the kind of terms used by the placing parent oftentimes can be an indication with regard to their commitment to the placement plan. If they're saying your baby, as opposed to my baby, just that language, maybe it's not a total red flag, but it's a yellow flag to me with regard to just whether they've truly accepted that placement plan. And as you and I both know, we don't have crystal balls, and we can never predict how a placement parents going to feel once they actually have given birth and they're holding that baby. It's their right to change their mind and not go through with that placement. But I'm constantly trying to measure the situation, if a committed couple was placing their third or fourth child, that's a pretty tricky situation. Have I seen it happen before where they've actually gone through with the placement? Yes, but placing a full sibling where the couple is committed to each other. That's a dicey er situation. It's not exactly a scam. It's just one of those kind of red flags that we're thinking this placement may not go through. Let me pause here and say that what we're talking about now are warning signs that unexpected mom does not plan to go through with the adoption. And I want to pause to note that this is not necessarily or even commonly known.

Unknown Speaker  20:00  
is the same thing as an adoption scam. This is somebody who is wavering, this is probably the most significant decision they've ever had to make. It's a hard decision. And so what are some signs that she or the couple may not go through? I'll throw out one, if she has not told her mother or her family, I see that as a sign. Because oftentimes what happens is, after the birth, which is such a significant event, at this point, the moms mother, their grandmother gets involved. Another sign would be if she has told her family, and they're against it. Right? If they're keeping it secret from somebody, that's definitely something that we have to pursue a little bit further, like, Why are you keeping it secret? And oftentimes, they are keeping it secret, because they know that family member is not going to want them to do the placement. And oftentimes, that family member will step in and say, Hey, we will help you raise this child. So yeah, secrecy. And also, knowing that there are family members that are opposed to the placement also can fall into that yellow or red flag category. Yes, exactly. Any other that you've seen, where it's a red flag that the mom may not go through with the placement, even though she's following all the rules, but that raise your concern that she may waffle and not place. So we're always looking for their level of commitment to the placement. And when we send background forms to the placing parent to fill out, and they don't get filled out. We send that HIPPA release to get their medical records. And that doesn't get done. We're setting up an attorney for the placing parent, and they refuse to cooperate with the attorney that's been set up for them. So any of those situations all are indicators that that placing parent really is not 100% committed to their placement plan. And again, this is not fraud is within her rights, right to do this, it's totally within her rights to do it is not your child until after birth, and the proper forms for relinquishment of parental rights have been signed. And even then certain states have a periods of time that that can be rigged. Exactly. One thing I'll add to that, Don, is that I see more fall throughs when there has not been an in person meeting with the placing parent, ideally by an adoption, social worker that does adoption options, counseling, and really asks the hard hitting questions like, how are you going to feel about seeing the baby at the hospital? How are you going to feel about holding the baby and then knowing that you're going to leave the hospital without the baby in your arms and the adoptive parents are going to leave that hospital with the baby, I'm really doing a gut check and doing that in person meeting rather than over the phone. I know with the pandemic and all that, you know, a lot of things happened over zoom. But I still firmly believe in that in person meeting with that placing parent so that that place where I can really think through their adoption plan and other yellow or red flags I see sometimes is either when the placing parent is overly emotional about the placement, or unduly emotional about the placement and not really appropriately emotional, but a woman that's making this decision. First of all, I think it's one of the most amazing gifts they could possibly ever give to an adoptive family. But it's a difficult decision. And if they're appropriately emoting over the decision, and it's been appropriately addressed with them in person with that adoption options counseling, either by adoption, social worker or by a lawyer, that helps a whole lot for that woman to really be able to process the decision that she's making.

Unknown Speaker  23:50  
And prospective adoptive parents are sometimes afraid of the options counseling, because the reality is one of the options that needs to be explored is parenting this child and there's a tendency to want to say, Oh, don't bring that up. But if you don't bring it up, well, first of all, there's ethical issues to be discussed at that point. But just from a practical standpoint, she's going to think about it at some point and you want her to think and have time to process and get support around that decision before the child is placed. So yeah, it's tough. It's a tough decision. Exactly. And I've had placing parents, they're terrified that the adoptive parents are going to back out, you know, they're really concerned because they're not in a position to parent this child and they want to give that child a good chance at life and security. And sometimes adoptive parents don't realize that that's a true fear of the placing parent is please don't back out on me. I need you there to take this baby. We're not only that, but I've I've invested in this future and that if you back out at the last minute because of something that

Unknown Speaker  25:00  
And I've got to quickly go back and find another family. And this has been something that, you know, I just having to recalibrate your ideas, and I just think it would be so hard. So, absolutely, I'm so glad you raised that. And that happens. We'll talk about that in a minute. But it does happen, that parents sometimes back out, before we come in talk about those are the scams that can be done against expectant parents by adoptive parents. Let me ask about how common Do you think it is for expectant moms, to not be fully open about prenatal exposure to alcohol and drugs, and this, I will say, is also not a scam, or even fraudulent. But it is a withholding of information, information the adoptive parents need. So how common is that? So I mean, especially with the opioid crisis, how we really saw an uptick in the number of babies that were exposed a drug exposed, some babies that have to be weaned off of methadone. And so especially with opiate crisis, we started to see a lot more in particular drug exposed babies. And again, Don, this goes to making sure the placing parent knows that they need to own their adoption plan. And usually, they're scared to share information about drug and alcohol use, because they're afraid that the adoptive parents are going to back out. And that's when that needs to be explained to them, the adoptive parents are more apt to back out if you don't share this information. Like if they know in advance that you were binge drinking at college during the first half of the pregnancy. Well, at least they can process that talk to their pediatrician and decide whether they want to go forward with this plan. Rather than I had a situation where my single adoptive mom was expecting to adopt twins. And when the twins were born, they were born drug exposed, and it was clear they had fetal alcohol syndrome. And that adoptive mother, she just immediately backed out at the hospital and said I cannot care of by myself for Special Needs twins. And so then we were scrambling at that point to try to find another family. Well, if that placing mom had been fourth right from the beginning, then that adoptive mother could have processed that information. And we could have had another adoptive family already lined up and not had that back out situation. So I'm always trying to make sure that that placing mother shares that information I explained to her look at if you don't share it, that's when we're more apt to have the adoptive parents back out. And I find that most placing parents want to be honest, but sometimes they're just embarrassed or scared about telling the truth. So we need to give them the freedom to be truthful in that situation. And then, you know, most of these babies that actually have been drug exposed or have to be weaned off of methadone or whatever drugs they've been exposed to, they actually have pretty good outcomes if it's not extreme drug abuse. So in many situations, I've even had the adoptive parents help pay for the methadone during the pregnancy, just to make sure that it's a controlled situation. And then we know, at the birth, that that baby's going to have to be weaned off the methadone, but those babies generally tend to have fairly good outcomes. And it gives time for the adoptive parents to be able to talk to the pediatrician read the medical data, and make a more informed decision. And sometimes presenting it to the expectant mom of this is what you can do now to help this child for the lifetime is if the parents are prepared, they're going in looking and saying, You know what, we're seeing a slight developmental delay, let's go ahead and let's start occupational therapy for this child or, you know what, let's put them in the Zero to Three program because he's not quite catching up where we think is, so they're being proactive. And we know that kids who receive therapies earlier in life versus being an identified until elementary age or later are less likely to thrive. So presenting it to the mom of this is how you can be the best parent possible to this child now is by being as honest as you can. Exactly, exactly. We have the placing parent fill out background forms about their prenatal care and actually signed them under oath and try to emphasize the importance of giving full and truthful information regarding their medical history, mental health history, drug alcohol use during the pregnancy, all of those things are going to be critical tools to give those adoptive parents in raising that child and so just trying to make sure that placing parent understands the importance of being completely truthful about everything to give that child the best chance of success and most placing parents

Unknown Speaker  30:00  
understand that and we'll come around to Lo and behold, you know, just putting it all out there, once they understand just how necessary it is for that information to all be out on the table. It's funny because an attorney client situations, normally personal information is used as confidential, and you don't share it with the other side. But adoptions are completely the opposite. And we have to explain to the placing parent look it nothing is going to be confidential. Everything needs to be shared here.

Unknown Speaker  30:30  
Because we have to be looking at for the best interest of the child. Exactly. And by creating from the parents, the adoptive parents standpoint, making sure they're working with a professional that can approach this from a non judgmental, no blaming type position. Because if the mom feels like she's going to be judged, she's going to be less likely to be honest. So choose a professional who has experience and can truly put their judgments on the backburner and not bring him to these discussions. Exactly, yes.

Unknown Speaker  30:59  
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Unknown Speaker  32:08  
All right, so now we've talked about scams or frauds, perpetrated by a expectant or supposedly expected person against prospective adoptive parents. The second category that we've talked about are acts by brokers or facilitators who are not acting legally. So let's talk about the whole idea of brokers or facilitators, and the legality there are. So most states, like Virginia, have anti facilitator laws and restrict making payments for somebody to match adoptive parents with expectant or placing parents and the only folks typically that are allowed to do a match or a licensed child placement or adoption agency. Yet, as you know, Don, there are a lot of entities out there that are not licensed that are not regulated, and there are brokers consultants out there that are doing matches. And in a few states, that's legal, but in most states, it's not legal. And so we really have to make sure that adoptive parents understand from the very beginning what is a legal payment versus what is not a legal payment. And the idea of only paying licensed child placement agencies to match as you know is that they're regulated their license, there are certain controls over the placement situation, the adoption agencies know to do a lot of due diligence on the placing parents and control the lawful payment of living expenses, etc. But there are folks out there who are just brokers and basically are taking money to match without following the necessary protocols or statutory guidelines, etc. I have had clients pay facilitators or brokers in violation of Virginia's law. And like I said, most states have similar laws that prohibit payments to facilitators and brokers. California actually has licensed facilitators. So that gets really confusing, but it's still not a lawful payment in Virginia. So typically, what we try to do is we try to undo the payment, like can we run it through a licensed child placement agency. I had one case where we couldn't undo the payment, the $30,000 had been paid illegally to a broker, and we had to disclose it to the court and we put it in the report to court. Let me just call it ABC adoptions, although that wasn't the name of the entity, but we put it in the disclosure to the judge. And I told the clients I said, I'm really concerned that this judge is going to question this payment. I'm not sure what we're going to do. We couldn't unring the bell at that point. Fortunately, the judge just made the comment

Unknown Speaker  35:00  
Wow, adoptions are getting really expensive nowadays. And he let it slide. But you know, it was the illegal payment. And the judge could have said, I'm not allowing this adoption to go through because of this illegal payment, and he could have turned it over to a prosecutor. So knowing what is lawful to pay, and who can lawfully match you from state to state is really important for adoptive parents to know, I would say that most consultants that I know of are not and they're very clear, they are not doing matches. They are handholding adoptive parents through the process. And they're very clear that they are not matching at all, facilitators and other brokers may not be doing that. But generally, if they're calling themselves a consultant, they're helping you figure out how to do your parent profile, how to, you know, put your best foot forward, what agencies you should be applying if you're gonna be applied to more than one things like that. Right. I would agree with you that most consultants don't match. But it's a matter of clarifying what exactly are they doing and what are you paying them to do? Yeah, making sure that they aren't doing that. Exactly, exactly. Okay, so that's talking about brokers and facilitators. Let's talk about acts by agencies or attorneys that are against adoptive parents, so fraudulent, or scams or underhanded type of things that adoption agencies or attorneys can do. So when I was president of the Academy in the 2017 timeframe, as you may recall, done, that is when the Independent Adoption Center went belly up in California, yeah, their main office was out of California, but they had four offices elsewhere throughout the United States. And when they went belly up, they had 1000s and 1000s of adoptive parent dollars that they had taken in. So in some cases, the adoptive parents had paid $50,000 $60,000 That was gone. These were the nest eggs. This was the whole adoption budget. Plus the doors were locked. The employees were let go. All of the home study information, the original documents like marriage certificates, the match information, all of that was not accessible. Some people were in the middle of a match with a woman named Julie, you know, and they knew the state, but they didn't know how to reach Julie now. It was just an absolute mass. And we had about 60 Academy lawyers all volunteered pro bono to step in. It was later shown through the investigation, that Independent Adoption Center knew in 2015, they were in trouble. And two sets of clients had looked at the finances and had complained to the state and state officials supposedly issued a warning in California. And the independent action center tried to drown out bad reviews and complaints by clients, the state started to investigate and 2016. But it really they didn't move the ball forward fast enough. And it all rolled into 2017 of them shutting their doors, and at least 150 Different families lost money. And we're in one stage or another of that adoption process. So I'm always telling my clients look at, if you're going to sign up with an adoption agency, you need to make sure they're licensed, bonded and insured, you need to know that your money is protected, because adoption agencies can file for bankruptcy. And we're looking at domestic agency fees now, ranging generally about 50 to $75,000, to do a domestic agency adoption. I mean, that's a huge amount of money that folks need to know is protected. That's interesting. And I assume that independent adoptions, they were licensed, but they weren't bonded or insured, correct? Correct. We also have to be careful of attorneys who are dishonest or just may simply not know what they're doing. I was hired as an expert witness on a case where the lawyer had the birth mom sign an out of court consent. And in Virginia for a private placement, she has to go sign before a judge. And this case had gone forward for over a year. And it was in the process of being finalized when the judge at that time questioned why her consent was done only before a notary and not before a judge, and that the lawyer had just not followed Virginia law. And so they had to reach back out to the placing mom and say, Hey, you didn't sign your consent before Judge it was time before a notary needs to be for a judge. And she said, I'm not signing another consent. I want my child back. And the family had had the child at that point for almost two years. And I was hired as an expert witness to attest that the attorney had committed legal malpractice and the family received funds, but they had a return this child that they had trust it this attorney and believed was their child and that the adoption was done properly. And so after nearly two

Unknown Speaker  40:00  
yours, it was just absolute heartbreak, it was devastating for these people who had trusted their lawyer. So it may not be that there's a dishonest lawyer. But it may be that the competent is in covenant, right. So hiring an experienced attorney that's done lots and lots of adoptions and knows what they're doing is really important too. And then there are some just, you know, the 34 years of practice, you've seen just the craziest stuff. But there's a lawyer out in LA in Los Angeles, who actually flies birth moms in from all over the country, and promises them shopping trips and trips to the beach. And these adoptions are outrageously expensive. They're over $100,000. Yeah. And when I looked into that, one of my clients had me look into it, and into the contract. I was just like, you gotta, you gotta walk away from this. And this is crazy, the the,

Unknown Speaker  40:56  
these women are being flown in, and you're paying for those costs. And now they're being taken out on shopping trips, etc. And then most women place because they can't afford to raise the child, or typically they're too young, right. So in this situation, you give that woman have false sense of financial security as well. And so the placement fall through rate then goes up, because one of the main reasons they were looking to place was because they couldn't afford to raise the child, but now they're being taken care of. So it's really a matter of always just kind of looking a little bit further into the situation. And if it smells, then it is probably something you need to walk away from. Yeah, it looks bad, smells bad. Chances are it is bad. Yeah, yes. Okay. And then the last one I want to touch on, it's not really a scam, you could argue it could be fraud, I don't know, it's not legally fraud. And that's where adoptive parents do this against expectant or birth parents. And I can think of a couple of examples, and I'm sure you can think of even more calling but the most common one we would say is adoptive parents, who say yes, I am on board for an open adoption. And that's the agreement that they have gone into it with the expectant mom. But after the adoption, to baby joins the family and adoptive family, then they look for excuses, not to go through with the openness that they promise. Sometimes it's not intentional, I think often it's not intentional, they were never very comfortable with it from the beginning. And they thought the only way they were gonna get a child is if they agree to it. But after they're the ones with the power, which is post adoption, I've just seen so many, for minor reasons, right, the birth parents showed up 10 minutes late to a meeting with the child. Now mind you, in that particular case, the birth parents didn't have a car and we're taking a bus. I've heard of another one where the birth parents continued to call the baby by the nickname they had given the baby. And the parents terminated the openness, the open adoption arrangement because of that. So for relatively minor things, you have to go in with the spirit that you're going to work this out, you don't terminate because she made the decision or they made the decision based on the idea that there was going to be some level of openness that you've agreed on. And if you change that, especially without really, really, really good reasons, that is a form of pulling one over on a vulnerable mom. Yes. And that's on the end, where we're representing the adoptive parents, we need to make sure the adoptive parents are honest and truthful. So it's really important for us lawyers, when we're representing adoptive parents, to teach those adoptive parents why an ongoing contact agreement is critical and important to the placing parent. And what I try to do is I try to say look at that ongoing contact agreement is going to let that placing parent know that they made the right decision that this child is doing well. This child is thriving, and so it reassures them, they did the right thing, they made the right decision. It also satisfies their level of curiosity. They're just curious in terms of what is the child look like? You know, how is the child doing? And it's really the human thing to do. And sometimes, the adoptive parents are scared of honoring the ongoing contact agreement because they're afraid that that's somehow going to open the door to that placing parent now wanting the child back or the child will prefer their biological parent. On some level. It's the fear from the adoptive parents that they're going to be replaced by the right by parents. Yeah. Whereas if they actually continue to have that ongoing contact, the child sometimes is going to romanticize, you know that their dad is Bill Gates.

Unknown Speaker  45:00  
You know, as opposed to the 711 clerk, you know, a couple of towns over. And so having that ongoing contact also helps in many ways to ground the child rather than, you know, have this irrational fear that now the child is going to prefer the biological parents, over the adoptive parents, these children, they really want to know what is happening with my biological parent. But if the adoptive parents are secure, and who they are, that child's only going to see their parents as the adoptive parents, and they'll have their curiosity satisfied by receiving that ongoing information. So I'm always trying to educate the adoptive parents. And of course, as you know, many states like Virginia, have enforceable post adoption, continued contact agreements, which we call packages, and they can be incorporated into the adoption final order. And that does give a little bit more teeth to the ongoing contract agreement. And although as a practical matter, most placing parents can't afford to go to court and even if they do go to court, the adoptive parents are going to come up with some reason why honoring the ongoing contract agreements, not in the best interest of the child. And there's hard pressed to see a judge who will go against a parent who says, This is not my, you know, my child reverts. We have potty accidents, we have tantrums, it's not in their best interest. And most judges will defer to the opinion of the parents, which in this case, are the top two parents, right? So it's better than nothing, but it's certainly no guarantee. Exactly, exactly. But that education of the adoptive parents and explaining to them look at this is an amazing gift that this woman is making or this couple is making. In many cases, it's just as important for the birth father to be part of that ongoing contact arrangement. And in most cases, it's just the sharing of some pictures with some just updates on how the child is doing. I mean, in most of these cases, it's not actual supervised visits, although there are those cases where the parties might agree to the supervised visits. But it's not asking that much of the adoptive parents to honor the ongoing contact agreement, compared to this amazing gift that's been bestowed upon them. And you know, that doesn't mean that educating adoptive parents is going to result in them honoring the ongoing contact agreement in every case. But I do find that that education does help in many cases. I agree. And the other thing is that there has been strong research that shows it's in the best interest of children. adopted kids do better, when they have their questions answered than they know who their biological parents are, that they could meet them. It takes away some of the unknown. And also the way I look at it, do you have a person when your child says, Why did Rebecca, not parent me? As adoptive parents, you don't have to make up the answer. You can say let's call Rebecca and ask, and then give Rebecca the heads up that the call is coming. And then the mystery is solved. I couldn't afford it. I wanted to finish my degree or whatever the reasons are, it becomes apparent at that point.

Unknown Speaker  48:06  
Thank you, thank you, thank you children's connection. They have been a longtime supporter of both the nonprofit creating a family as well as this podcast. Children's connection is a Texas based adoption agency providing services for domestic infant adoption, as well as embryo donation and adoption throughout the US. They also provide home studies and post adoption support to families in Texas.

Unknown Speaker  48:32  
I think it is important and some of the other things that I periodically will see adoptive parents are being asked if they're in fertility treatment and then lying and saying that they have stopped fertility treatment when in fact they are continuing in treatment is another one that I sometimes see and the other, we've already touched on it backing out of the adoption. Now, you described a situation where it was definitely in the best interest of the children, that the single mom did not go forward because of the degree of special needs that the twins had. So it could definitely be in the child's best interest. We want parents to feel up to it. But we don't see this too often anymore, because generally people know the gender but it used to be the adoptive parents wanted a boy and the baby was born girl or vice versa. That they backed out for reasons such as that I did have that happen in a case where the adoptive parents did not tell the placing parent that they wanted a girl and it turned out to be a boy and then they backed out. And I mean, to me, that's just an extremely egregious situation. You know, we do see some adoptive parents do some crazy things and like they won't tell the placing parent that they're going to change the name of the baby. Another one I see you're right. They all agree on a name. And then you know, lo and behold, the placing parent finds out later that the name has been changed and they really can't do anything about it. But it's a breach in that relationship and

Unknown Speaker  50:00  
At some point, usually that child is you know, is going to locate that biological parent at some point and that biological parents, you know, gonna be upset about that change in name. The other thing I see is I sometimes see adoptive parents working with more than one placing parent, it's the same as doing the continued fertility treatment, you know, now they're potentially having to be at two separate births at the same time, or that placing mom is placing because she thinks that her child is going to be the sole child and that family, sure, and then finds out later that that family is actually working with one or two other birthmarks. And the glibly say things like, Oh, I always want to twins. These are not twins, their kids to coming from different backgrounds, different strengths. This cannot be in the child's best interest. And you're right, exactly. It's a good one. I have seen that as well. Yeah. And we're they're still doing fertility treatments. And now the adoptive mothers pregnant, and like, well, you have to let your mother know that you are pregnant, and you're gonna have this biological child because some placing parents that's, that's important to them. They don't want to place their child in a family where there's already a biological child, or they may not care. They may be like, No, I like this family. I'm really happy for you. I'm super happy that you're pregnant. And I'm super happy now that the child I'm placing with you is going to have a sibling, but one way or another. We need to make sure it's disclosed to that placing parents so that she can make an informed decision because now the facts have changed exactly that she's picked. The facts about them have changed and it's only fair that she has that information to process. Exactly, exactly. Thank you so much, Colin Quinn for being with us today to talk about adoption scams both how to recognize them and how to prevent them. What are the warning signs up and thank you so much. Thank you, Don. It's been a pleasure.