Surrogacy Frauds

The New York Times writes about the surrogacy fraud:

An agency called SurroGenesis listed 60 locations around the world where infertile couples and individuals could find women willing, for a fee, to serve as gestational surrogates. It turns out that many of the SurroGenesis locations were post office boxes. “Many of them have lost their savings, and any chance of having a family is completely destroyed,” said Andrew W Vorzimer, a lawyer working with those affected. “We’ve got couples in the midst of pregnancies with no ability to pay the surrogate, or even make insurance payments, which have gone unpaid.”. On the heels of the birth in January of octuplets, conceived by in vitro fertilization, to a California woman, the case highlights the lack of oversight in the business of creating babies. Among some 70 people affected by the SurroGenesis shutdown, Denise Williams, 27, a mother of three in Ceres, Calif., is scheduled to deliver twins on May 15 by Caesarean section. The couple in Italy for whom she is carrying the twins has lost $27,000, Ms Williams said, but is sending her money to help cover expenses. Several would-be parents said they found SurroGenesis on the Internet and signed up for services that included finding surrogates and, in some cases, egg donors.

As part of the agreement, parents were to deposit money to cover costs in accounts overseen by a company called Michael Charles Independent Financial Holding Group. But records on file with the California secretary of state’s office show that Tonya A Collins, who founded SurroGenesis, is also listed as the registered agent for Michael Charles. Tamara Daney, a lawyer in Oakland, Calif., who said she had drafted legal papers for surrogates used by SurroGenesis, said it appeared that there was no money left in any trust accounts.

And as if that wouldn’t be enough, EggDonor.com writes:

Our firm has been pursuing Rosa Balcazar and her Beverly Hills agency, B Coming, for almost two years. We have already obtained one judgment against her on behalf of a Taiwanese client for over $100,000.00.

The Los Angeles Times has run a story today by Kimi Yoshino on the ongoing fraudulent activities of B Coming. Ms Yoshino you may remember was also the reporter who, along with the New York Times’ Stephanie Saul, broke the story about SurroGenesis on Saturday.

I will have a lot more to add about both B Coming and SurroGenesis later today and in the upcoming weeks.

These two agencies are aberrational and only serve to taint and unfairly portray an entire industry. As for law enforcement, it seems as if they are uninterested unless someone has a stained, blue dress.

And he also quotes his law partner:

That would be followed by a promise from Ms Balcazar to the couple that she would find them another surrogate, only to have the same thing happen again, or she would simply fail to follow up at all, keeping all of their funds and not refunding a dime.

In one instance, the clinic charges $2,500.00 for a service but Ms Balcazar told the coupe the charge was $29,500.00 resulting in an overcharge of roughly $27,000.00 At other times she would simply keep the money and not pay at all. She has done the same with me.” He went on to state that he and his staff are prepared to “testify in court against Mrs Balcazar for the fraud she has committed and continues to commit, and help put an end to her blatant abuse of patient’s trust and money.” This is just one physican and there are many others.

If that was not horrific enough, once Health Net stopped paying, the Intended Mother was told by Children’s Hospital that her child was being discharged despite the fact she was very ill, unstable, disabled and unable to make the flight back to Spain without a private nurse.

Denise writes about her surrogacy experiene:

No problems, no worries we were right on target.

Well the next day I get a call from K and she had news from Dr Heard. The egg donor was leaving for a work convention in Dallas. This is not a big disaster but it was disappointing. I already knew that K was going to come but I had no idea I would to see both of them. This was upsetting news and I was shocked so I was not even sure what to say. The donor will just have to go in tomorrow morning.

This was a relief but I guess I am still on edge just a little bit. I am still every excited, and the transfer is less then 2 weeks away. I am still very positive and trust that God has a great plan So look out April 6th.

I reworded and summarized all quotes to give you a quicker read, to read the original posts, please visit the original websites.

Tagged as: surrogacy, surrogacy fraud