Eight years ago, a number of adoption professionals created the Birth Parent Fraud Advisory System. While this by no means includes all professionals involved in the adoption process, the System reports that in that eight year period, over 1,000 instances of fraud have been identified.

This is a much bigger problem in states which allow prospective adoptive parents to pay substantials amounts to birth mothers for “expenses”.

In Virginia, this problem does not very often occur, because Virginia has a statute which prohibits most of these birth parent expense payments.

This is an important reason, however, why people pursuing adoption should consult an attorney early in the process, so that they will know what can be paid and what cannot. Otherwise, they open themselves to the possibility that a birth mother may request help with a bill, and they don’t know if they can or cannot pay it.