Ukrainian Surrogacy – Avoiding Fraud

This is an incredibly vulnerable time for you as intended parents. You want to be sure you are protected from ever being taken advantage of through the surrogacy process.

The bad news is that everywhere there are a number of dishonest people looking to make money off your desire to have a baby.

Infertility can make you feel helpless. You are desperate for an easy solution. The expenses of infertility can make you wish there were cheaper options and faster ways to build your family.

All of this makes you more susceptible to false promises, money back guarantees, and guaranteed baby programs.

To make the situation even trickier, not every questionable product, person, or website is so obvious in their sales approach.

There are even fertility clinics, doctors, and lawyers who may participate in illegal or questionable practices.

Then, there are businesses with good intentions that may oversell their product. So, it looks like a scam, but it’s really just bad marketing.

There are also people who truly believe they are doing well even if they are doing so in a questionable way.

Protecting Yourself

To protect yourself, the process starts up front, before beginning the process.

– Ask lots of questions and if you are unclear about the answers, keep asking.

• If you feel the agency is avoiding giving a straight answer, it is probably time to speak with another agency or clinic.

– Have a lawyer look over your contracts.

• Choose someone who is not affiliated with the clinic or agency you are working with.
• A clinic or agency may offer “to share” their lawyer for a lower fee than you’d pay for your own. But, you want someone who will absolutely represent your side, with no bias.
• Another reminder that these contracts are enforced under Ukrainian law and the presiding language is Ukrainian.
• Delivering Dreams is unique in that our agency contract is under US law (and in English).

– Unbelievable results shouldn’t be believed.

• If the promises are outrageous, you probably shouldn’t trust them.
• Anyone can call themselves “the best” or “most trusted.”

– Unbelievable prices should also raise your distrust

• Be wary when you receive a price without many details. As they say, the devil is in the details and in this case, usually, the hidden costs and surprises are too.

– This is not the time to try and save money by going with questionable, cheapest option.

• Couples have lost tens of thousands of dollars – and experienced tremendous emotional pain – due to surrogacy and egg donor scams.
• Being offered an “inexpensive and easier solution” for egg donor IVF or surrogacy can sound appealing. But it’s probably a scam.

– Be wary of overly enthusiastic forum posts

• You can’t trust everything you see in a forum. Endorsements posted on a forum should be considered with a healthy dose of skepticism.
• Fertility clinics and companies have been known to hire people to post positive comments online praising their businesses.
• The less-than-legitimate posters are often easy to spot. Their posts are only in support of a particular business.
• They often repeat their endorsement for the same agency multiple times.
• Or, they suddenly show up in a forum posting referral links but not much else.

– Websites are notoriously inaccurate.

• There are sites with a price mentioned, but the breakdown of costs adds up to another amount.
• There are sites with three different success rates for the same procedure posted on various pages of their site.

– Check testimonials!

– Dig, dig, dig to be sure whoever you’re working with is on the up and up.