I love my job. Every day I come into work and I get to play a small role in helping my clients start their families by bringing a baby into their lives. The part of my job that I don’t care for is when I am retained to initiate litigation against an agency that has turned my clients dreams of having a baby into a nightmare by stealing their life savings. We have documented numerous scandals over the past few years in which agencies have absconded with client funds and/or shuttered their doors without any notice and, in the process, abandoned their Intended Parents, Surrogates and Egg Donors. These recent episodes have included agencies such as Angels In Waiting Surrogacy Center, Bala Surrogacy, Mid-West Egg Donation, SurroGenesis, B Coming and Surrogate Parenting Center of Texas.

Sadly, there are no signs of these scandals ending anytime soon. I do not know about you, but it seems almost once a day I receive an email from a different widow of a benevolent but dead President of some obscure country in Africa, decrying the mistreatment of her family and soliciting my assistance by allowing her to wire 350 million dollars into my bank account so she can escape the country with her infant children. Would you ever fall for a scam like that? Well, that is essentially what some of these agencies are doing — the only difference is that the Intended Parents are being asked to wire up to $125,000 of their life savings, purportedly to fund a surrogacy and/or egg donor arrangement. Yet Intended Parents, desperate to start their families, take understandable but nevertheless reckless risks by sending these funds without ever even having verified that the agency exists outside of some digital presence on the internet.

Would you wire funds to a surrogate agency with a glossy website, representing years of experience yet they list no physical address for their business? Would you send those funds to an agency if you knew this was their published place of business:

UPS Store or Surrogacy Agency?

This is an example of an agency that operates out of a UPS storefront. Of course, if you were to review their website, you would have no way to know that it was not their actual physical address. Does this mean that the agency is fraudulent? Of course not. But it should at least put you on inquiry notice and compel you to demand that the agency provide you with a legitimate and verifiable address so that you can do your own due diligence before sending them a large sum of money. By the way, a tool like Google Earth makes it very easy to determine the legitimacy of the address.

We previously blogged on some ways you can protect yourself before retaining one of these agencies. The Internet Health Resources site has some excellent online articles on how you can avoid being victimized as well. Among some of the basic precautions you can take, include:

The aforementioned list is not meant to be exhaustive. Rather, it should be used solely as a starting point. I have re-posted it so as to address some of the concerns I hear from worried Intended Parents and Surrogates who are anxious given the recent spate of scandals. Also, please do not automatically assume the worst if you hear a rumor about your agency. Often times when fraudulent conduct is being alleged, there is more smoke than fire. Sometimes it is misinformation being used to gain a competitive advantage by a competing agency or a disgruntled client upset about a legitimate dispute. However, if you believe that something inappropriate is taking place with your agency, contact your independent attorney immediately. Demand an immediate accounting of your trust funds. If the funds are being held by the agency, insist that they be immediately transferred to a licensed and bonded escrow company. If necessary, contact local law enforcement.

Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Related Posts:

1. ABC News Reports On SurroGenesis Scam
2. New Allegations Against Miracles Egg Donation & Surrogacy
3. American Woman Jailed For Running International Surrogacy Scam
4. Angels Or Demons? Another Scandal Involving a Surrogacy & Donor Agency
5. An Important Message From A SurroGenesis Victim
6. Has Another Surrogate Agency, Run By A Former SurroGenesis Officer, Disappeared With Client Funds?
7. Industry Professionals & Intended Parents Beware Of A New Scam
8. Serious Allegations Of Misconduct Leveled Against Miracles Egg Donation and Surrogacy, Inc.
9. Surrogacy Scandal Epidemic Continuing: More Troubling Allegations Regarding Bala Surrogacy
10. Bala Surrogacy Update: Complaints Filed With Pennsylvania District Attorney