Dateline NBC - Adoption Fraud

[Fairymom]

Anyone catch last night's Dateline NBC piece on a gal who's been defrauding infertile couples out of money by promising them her baby in a private adoption, only to take the money and run? I feel so bad for those couples. They want a baby so badly and she took advantage of their need and vulnerability. I don't think there are enough levels of hell for people like her. It was awful to watch. Heartbreaking. Those couples were willing to give her anything, anything, in exchange for a baby. One gal had even gone out and outfitted an entire nursery in expectation of getting the baby - then she had to go home to an empty nursery.

When I first realized what the story was about, I was tempted to change the channel. But then I couldn't stop watching. What a trainwreck.

[Pecan]

Fairymom, I did not catch that show. How cruel for her to do this. Her a** should be under a jail somewhere. Preying on people at their most vulnerable. Absolutely disgusting,
Pecan

[Kallypso]

Omigosh, DH & I watched it!
I was absolutely DISGUSTED with that woman! How DARE she treat people and their hearts like that!

I really hope that other people can learn from that and don't get hurt by nasty cretins like her.
She made my skin crawl!

[hollym]

i didn't see this, but i know some couples this has happened to. it's one of the reasons we decided to stop looking into adoption. there are some HORRIBLE monsters out there who will prey on anyone's emotions to make a buck. they are the same people who scam the elderly, the incompetent, and the hurting. what goes around comes around. they'll pay for it someday.

[KelliAnn]

One word..................

B*TCH!

[Fairymom]

And the inevitable question is: Why does a piece of sh*t like that get to get pg after an oops! one-night-stand and we can't? Plus Dateline had no idea what happened to the baby ... I wasn't entirely sure she really was pg during the piece, she just looked like fat poor white trash to me. Snaggle-toothed, too. Holy mackerel, if it had been me looking to adopt her child, I'd have taken one look at her and thought "Nope - shallow end of the gene pool - I don't want that baby!"

[Familyof2]

You have got to be kidding me. What a completely sick woman. Those poor families probably now have lost their chance at adoption, since it is so expensive and it's unlikely they can come up with that kind of money any time soon. I just don't understand what motivates a person to treat others in that manner.

Did they say how to avoid a scam like this?

[Kallypso]

Ya - they interviewed her!
One of the women who was being scammed figured out it was all a big fib when the b*tch (as I shall refer to her as) disconnected her cell phone suddenly and all was quiet on her end... she did research online and found other people with similiar stories, similiar addresses to the b*tch's, etc. etc...
So they set the b*tch up and met with her in a hotel (so the poor lady could give the b*tch more rent/food money!??!?) and the Dateline reporter pretended to be the woman's friend there to meet the birth mother!
She just sat there and told lie after lie after lie! She even had a made-up toddler she kept talking about.
Dateline did homework and found out that she was all lies - fake name, fake address, fake work, fake fake fake fake fake!
They followed her after that and she went on a shopping spree!
They even had her on tape buying baby clothes!
She called and left the poor woman a message that she was in labor and would call back... then disconnected THAT phone!!!
But they caught up with her and she agreed to a tearful interview where she said she was a horrible person.. blah blah blah!
They can't press charges cuz they're not even sure a crime was committed because it's not illegal to give gifts or help out the birth mother with her expenses, even if she changes her mind. Sounds like the perfect scam to me.

They didn't really say how to avoid it - but I would think background checks, private investigators, verifying facts, etc...
Fact is - it's cheaper to do indie adoptions - I don't think people are going to stop adopting that way, leaving nasty cretins wide open to scam more people.

[Jen's Hope]

I saw it too, made me sick to my stomach. How can someone be so cruel and insensitive? I hope she gets hers.......

[Fairymom]

Verbal contracts don't have any weight with courts - one person's word against another's, too hard to enforce, hence they're not legally binding. As far as the diamond ring goes, traditionally it was given to the woman as compensation to her family should the engagement be broken, since she would then be considered "damaged goods" (particularly because her fiance would have been in the clear to go ahead and have sex with her, in exchange for his promise to marry her). The woman is under absolutely no legal obligation to give the ring back, and in divorces, it is considered her property, not property of the marriage. Nowadays, the engagement ring has survived but it's original purpose has gone by the wayside, considering the fact that most of us aren't virgins when we marry. A woman may be under a moral obligation to return an engagement ring, especially if she's the one who breaks off the engagement, but there is no law specifying that she must. The law considers the ring the property of the woman once the man has given it to her - believe it or not.

As for the white trash defrauding infertile couples goes, she doesn't work. Scamming good people for money is how she makes money. If she were to sign a document properly drafted by an adoption attorney, then there'd be a contract, something the law could recognize and go after her for. But, sadly, she's too crafty for that. And I don't actually think private adoptions are cheaper than going through an agency - cheapness is not necessarily the appeal of a private adoption. It's very hard to get an infant in domestic adoptions, and most couples would prefer to have an infant, for obvious reasons. Plus you have to go through an extensive screening process, endure multiple home visits, and languish on a waiting list sometimes for years before a child is placed with you. Going the private route, you find a birthmother already with child, hopefully early in the pgcy, you meet her, you each interview the other, and if she likes you, you agree to pay for prenatal care, the birth, and almost anything else the birthmother wants you to, in the hopes that at the end of 4-7 months, you'll have a baby in your arms, because with a private adoption, the bureaucracy is considerably less. Women lookimg to give up children in a private adoption have to be careful how they word their requests for money - because it is illegal to sell babies, and private adoption is dangerously close to that by its very nature and the fact that there are no oversight agencies coordinating them. Still, the internet has become an incredible tool in the search for birthmothers willing to give up their children in a private adoption.