Adoption Scams

The truth is that most adoptions go well. The adoption professionals, birth parents, and adoptive family all act with the utmost integrity.

What if an adoption professional or potential birth mother is trying to take advantage of you, however?

Many adoptive families that experience fraud recognize the seriousness of the warning signs only in hindsight. These families later acknowledge that they just didn’t pay attention to the red flags or hoped that, by ignoring them, things would somehow work out. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to get out of a bad situation or take steps to learn more if you cannot identify the red flags early on.

Chuck Johnson
President, National Council for Adoption

This quote originated in the article Avoiding Adoption Scams authored by Hal Kaufman, the Founder of My Adoption Advisor, and published by the National Council for Adoption.

To decrease the incidence of adoption fraud you must:

  • Increase your understanding of adoption scams
  • Identify the early warning signs that something isn’t right
  • Take the necessary action to help ensure a safe adoption


Our adoption training course
Identify Red Flags & Avoid Adoption Fraud
is the only on-demand adoption education course that teaches you
how to best protect yourself.

Adoption Scams

An adoption scam occurs when someone deceives another party for personal gain. The perpetrators might be after money, but they may also be more interested in attention, love, or power.

Red Flags

Too many adoptive families that were victims of an adoption scam recognized the warning signs only in hindsight. Perhaps their adoption professional was not responsive to phone calls and emails and never sent promised information. Maybe the pregnant woman always tried to draw the family into her ongoing crises or subtly yet repeatedly asked for money.

When it comes to adoption fraud, the biggest factor working against you is your strong, “I’ll do whatever it takes” desire to adopt. Even if you realize that something is amiss with a particular situation, your deep desire to adopt may take over and cause you to emotionally rationalize what is happening. Don’t let this happen to you!

Dig Deeper

“Dig Deeper” means further researching the people with whom you are working. There are many low-tech ways to do this, such as interviewing adoption professionals in person, following up with references, and obtaining real proof of pregnancy.

Although the Internet makes it easier for scammers to find you, it also makes it easier for you to verify their intentions. For example, you can find past litigation online and leverage adoption forums. You can even extract location data (geotags) from digital picture files or identify someone’s general location from the IP address you find in an email they send you.

Adoption Education

Identify Red Flags & Avoid Adoption Scams: Educate Yourself and Adopt Safely

Sometimes it’s good to learn through experience. This is NOT one of those times. Regardless of whether you are pursuing an agency or private adoption, you must be able to distinguish between those adoption professionals and potential birth mothers who are trustworthy and those who are simply trying to take advantage of your “I’ll do whatever it takes” desire to adopt.

This course is offered at a 5-10% discount in our Adoption Advertising & Networking Packages.

You can blame the economy, greed, the Internet, or anything else you want to, but the unfortunate reality is that there are “adoption professionals” and “birth mothers” out there who are trying to defraud you. The good news is that there are MANY more who are genuine, honest, and trustworthy. The challenge is to know which type of person you’re working with so you can avoid the emotional and financial pain that results from being defrauded.

The content from this course originates from adoptive parents that experienced fraud firsthand. The course shares with you what they wish they would have known when they were going through the process — what would have prevented them from being a victim of fraud.

You’ll learn how to identify the warning signs that something may not be what it appears to be. You’ll learn low-tech and high-tech ways to verify that what people are telling you is in fact true. And finally, you’ll learn specific, practical steps that if taken, will dramatically decrease your chances of being defrauded.

This course was the result of a collaboration between My Adoption Advisor and AdoptionScams.net.

During this course you will learn how to spot the warning signs that an adoption professional or a prospective birth parent is not being honest with you and how to dig deeper through research and verification techniques to increase your chances for a safer adoption.

You will learn about:

  • 24 red flags associated with what we call The Unprofessional Professional, The High Risk Professional, and The “Too Good To Be True” Professional
  • 23 red flags tied to potential birth mothers
  • 26 high tech and low tech ways to increase your confidence that the people you are working with are being truthful with you
  • 6 simple steps that if implemented will dramatically decrease your chances of being defrauded
Included with this course is the Identifying Red Flags & Avoiding Scams Training Guide. This guide provides a framework within which you can take notes during the course (key takeaways are already provided for you) and complete the course exercises. Additionally, this guide also includes tons of Internet resources, interview questions to ask your adoption professional, and much more.
Within one business day after your purchase you will receive an email inviting you to view the course materials.

You may access the video for up to 6 months from the date of purchase. If you ever find yourself needing more time, however, please just let us know. We will accommodate any reasonable request.

If you received a coupon code from your adoption professional or adoption-related organization, you may apply it to your purchase at time of checkout.

If you are interested in this course please check out our Adoption Networking & Advertising Packages, too. They include the course and are offered at a 5-10% discount.

Many families also combine this course with our adoption profile or networking and advertising A La Carte Services.

Please check them out.

Price: $99.00

Price: $99.00