YET ANOTHER US ADOPTION AGENCY DECIEVED IT’S CLIENTS

All that is wrong with international adoptions and the lack of clear above board regulations within this kind of adoption can be clearly seen in the case of a prospective US couple that were deceived and lied to in order to extort hard cash from them in an unregulated adoption process that failed.

The US married couple Antonio and Antoinette Carchedi after deciding to adopt a child back in 2002 contacted American International Children’s Alliance adoption agency in Marblehead. The agency run by Kimberly Menard and Dragos Vranceanu explained that they had a sound and established adoption agency with between 80 to 100 children placed from Romania every year, so this seemed a natural Country for the Carchedi couple to adopt a child from, but then of course Romania placed a ban on Inter Country Adoptions and in 2004 Mr & Mrs Carchedis were now told that an adoption from Romania was not possible.

They were given Bulgaria as another option but in 2005 as the case dragged on and no child found Russia was given as a new option for adopting a child. The Agency lied as it explained it had a relationship with a Russian organization for child placements described as a model program for placing children for adoption, but the Carchedis couple was obviously unaware of the deception at this moment.

They were asked for a payment and made it to the rouge agency of 24,100 USD, plus paid another 3,900 USD above this themselves in air fares to visit Perm in Russia after being told they would need to be there to meet with Russian official. After a long travel by aircraft and road the couple were shocked once in Russia to find they had been deceived as the agency had no contacts in Russia as was NOT an accredited agency, thus the 2 year old boy they had wished to adopt was therefore available either.

Rightly so Mr & Mrs Carchedis are now suing the American International Children’s Alliance adoption agency in Marblehead and the case is to be heard in the Superior Court in Essex over the outright lies it told in order to gain huge funds by deception and are asking for damages totaling 33,000 USD which are all the fees plus airfares they paid.

Here the Hague convention that the international adoption agencies again failed to offer any form of protection and this classic case shows that until these agencies are fully regulated in law and acted upon more and more cases of heartbreak will appear within the International adoption system throughout the World. This is just one of many couples that have been deceived by rouge unregulated international adoption agencies over many years and it is imperative that anyone wishing to adopt a child makes some very serious enquiries before they engage any adoption agency.

The agency websites are glossy, show lovely children waiting for adoption, hide behind the Hague convention as a form of legalization and accreditation to honesty, but as this case has proved far more needs to be ascertained before anyone engages any Adoption agency nowadays.

One of the reasons that Romania banned International adoptions was because of such a lack of transparency within these kind of adoptions that have been like in this case proved not serve neither the child’s best interest nor those wishing to adopt a child and it is the same reason that other Countries are following suit.