[Amd411]

Hi I am posting for a friend ,she sent her paper work to an agency 8 months ago,along with a very hefty check (over 15,000.00)
She has yet to get a log in date and the rep from the agency is giving her a run around .This agency has a temporary accrediation and it will expire in April. (Hague)
The rep has told her she does have a log in date but she can not acess it on her computer .Does anyone know how she can find out if her paper work is really in China? The director of the agency is in another state and never available.
This to me all does not sound right.I have no experiance with China ,just Russia .
Any advice out there?
Thanks

[sak9645]

I'm a little concerned about your friend's situation.

1. If the agency loses its Hague accreditation, this could pose some real problems, unless the agency makes plans to transfer its cases to an agency that is accredited.

2. It seems unusual for someone to have to pay so much money up front. In most cases, agencies charge on a "pay as you go" basis, with a big chunk of the fees occurring after a family accepts a referral, which can be two years or more down the road.

3. Many out of state agencies do a superb job of communicating with their clients. With today's methods of communication, it should be just as easy for an agency to stay in touch with clients who live across the country as it would be to stay in touch with clients who live across town.

It would be appropriate if the agency informed your friend of when her dossier was sent to China and when she was officially logged in. The log in date governs when she will get a referral, since China generally gives referrals in the order in which groups of dossiers are received. And even though getting a referral may be two years down the road, or longer, your friend will want to know approximately where she is in the queue. Moreover, if your friend emailed the agency, common courtesy demands that she get at least some sort of reply.

You might want to ask for comments by PM about the specific agency, to see if other families are experiencing problems. Do remember that commenting about agencies MUST be done by PM, and not on this list.

Sharon

[KarenInCa]

I'm in agreement with Sharon.
None of the information on this adds up to what most of us experience.
Agencies that offer adoption from China vary slightly, but most of the information and costs are similar.

[Amd411]

Does anyone know how she can check if her dossier is in China? Thanks

[specialk4b]

There's really no way for an individual to check if their dossier is in China. All specific communication goes from CCAA to the agency.

[jessibird]

Originally Posted by specialk4b

There's really no way for an individual to check if their dossier is in China. All specific communication goes from CCAA to the agency.

I agree, She had better see a lawyer and see if she can scare them into getting her some info. It really doesn't add up. We only had to pay about 1/2 of that throughout the 9 months we paperchased.

[sak9645]

Let me just add one thing.

If an agency loses accreditation, it can ASK an accredited agency to take over its cases. However, the accredited agency won't work for free.

If the agency that loses accreditation does not transfer to the new agency any money received from clients and not already spent on specific activities directly related to their cases, the new agency can decline to take over, unless the clients wish to make up any shortfall.

Unfortunately, some agencies are in financial difficulty these days, because of country closures and slowdowns, increased competition for clients, increased costs of complying with new regulations, and so on.

Failing agencies sometimes request large proportions of client fees in advance and do not "escrow" them (put them aside) in a special fund to pay for those clients' adoptions). They use the money to pay their general operating costs, such as their rent, utility bills, staff salaries, and so on.

As you can imagine, if the agency has to stop doing China adoptions, or if it closes its doors completely, and it has already spent client money on general operating expenses, it probably won't have the funds to reimburse another agency for taking over its clients who are in process.

In that terrible situation, families can certainly sue the failing agency. However, filing a lawsuit can be expensive. And, meanwhile, the families still need to pay an agency to continue their adoption process. Moreover, if the agency has no money and few assets, it may not be able to pay families, even if they win.

I'm not saying that your friend's agency is in such a situation, since I have no idea which agency is involved, or what its accreditation progress or its financial condition is. I can only hope that your friend is dealing with poor communication, and nothing else. Poor communication can be remedied.

Before letting panic set in, your friend should send a letter to the Executive Director of the agency. She might tried sending it by FedEx, or else paying the post office to send it as a registered or certified letter, so that she can be sure that it will get delivered and get someone's attention.

In the letter, as calmly as possible, your friend should ask to know about the status of her adoption -- for example, the log-in date. She should also ask for information about the agency's progress towards reaccreditation, and what arrangements will be made if that reaccreditation does not occur. In particular, she should ask what portion of the funds already paid to the agency would be transferred to an accredited agency or refunded to her if the agency cannot continue to place children from China.

Ideally, if she has kept good records, she should let the Executive Director know about previous attempts to contact people at the agency, which were unsuccessful. She should request an immediate phone call from the Executive Director, clarifying the situation. She should NOT make any threats to call licensing authorities, the JCICS, or attorneys at this point. The goal is to engage in positive dialogue that will give her reassurance or, at least, suggest next steps.

If your friend gets a good response, it will do a lot to ease her mind. If she gets no reply, or gets a reply that does not give her straight answers, then she might want to begin thinking about contacting an attorney. This approach should not be taken lightly, as it turns the relationship between her and the agency into an adversarial one. If at all possible, she should try to work things out. Still, it may be appropriate.

Before contacting a lawyer, your friend should also begin gathering information from other families in process with the agency. Going to the big China bulletin boards and listservs and posing a couple of very non-threatening questions about the agency, then asking people to respond in private emails, is the way to go. Remember that some agencies monitor the boards and listservs, and it would be unwise to start bad mouthing them on a public forum.

If things begin to look very bad, based on conversations with other families, your friend may well want to contact the licensing authorities in the state(s) where the agency is licensed, to see whether they are receiving similar complaints and to register her own.

Separately, or in conjunction with other families, your friend might also want to contact the Joint Council on International Children's Services (JCICS), if the agency is a member. JCICS is the world's oldest and largest association of international adoption agencies, and a strong advocate for ethical intercountry adoption. It sets Standards of Practice for member agencies, and I believe that it currently has a complaint registry and/or grievance process.

I do hope that none of these actions is necessary. I should tell you that, in my experience, almost everyone goes through an "I hate my agency" phase, however brief, and however good the agency is. I used an absolutely phenomenal agency, with a terrific reputation for integrity and good service -- and yet, at one point, I called another agency and considered switching to it!

In retrospect, I was asking for something my agency simply couldn't produce -- namely, accurate information on what was going to happen to dossiers (like mine) that were in the Ministry of Justice, in 1995, when China changed its policies and said that only the Ministry of Civil Affairs could process dossiers and assign children.
At that point, only the Chinese government knew -- and it wasn't talking.

It was several months before China announced that Justice would not be allowed to finish processing dossiers that were already there, and that agencies would have to transfer the dossiers to Civil Affairs (to what is now the CCAA). During that time, my agency -- which had a strong working relationship with the head of the adoption unit in Justice -- was scrambling to build new contacts and get as much information as it could. Whenever it got a scrap of solid news, it notified us -- but those scraps of news just weren't enough to make a bunch of prospective parents sleep soundly! We were all on edge.

Once dossiers were transferred to Civil Affairs, we still didn't rest easy. No one knew, now, what the timetable would be, given that Civil Affairs would now have twice as many dossiers, but no extra staff. And no one knew, now, whether Civil Affairs would be as comfortable with people like me, who had some unique situations. In my case, I was a 50 year old single woman; Mme. Liu in Justice had been fairly welcoming to older, single women. Would Civil Affairs grant me the young daughter that I requested?

In the long run, I was granted the absolutely amazing child who is now my daughter, and saw many, many examples of my agency's commitment to ethics and client service. But I went through some serious uncertainties during my process, and doubted my agency at various points.

And, of course, your friend's situation is very different from mine. Right now, there should be no reason for an agency NOT to contact the CCAA and request log-in dates for its groups; this is information that is common knowledge. Your friend won't get answers to how long the process will be, because NO ONE knows those answers right now, not even the CCAA. But she should be able to find out when the clock officially started ticking.

My agency also took little money from clients prior to referral. We paid for homestudies -- I used a local agency -- and for certain other expenses that were clearly specified, in advance. But the bulk of my adoption fees were paid when I signed a letter accepting my referral. The fact that your friend's agency requested $15,000 up front -- and that was approximately the total cost of my adoption, back in 1997 -- worries me.

I just looked at one agency's website. This is a Hague-accredited agency with a terrific reputation. It actually gives a spreadsheet showing when various fees are due to the agency. Right now, fees that do NOT relate to the homestudy or USCIS clearance are expected to be about $5,400 once homestudy is complete and submitted to the agency. You also pay $3,300 for China's processing fee and $1,050 for translation of all documents, once you complete your dossier and send it to the agency. That's $9,750 -- a lot less than the $15,000 your friend paid up front. Other agencies may have lower up front costs. And today, an adoption will have total fees of about $25,000, including the homestudy, USCIS activities, travel, and all.

Sharon

[Amd411]

Thanks everyone I will forward all the messages to my friend.