Writing about a bad experience with Positive Surrogacy, basically a bait and switch.
Around 2023 we were looking for a surrogate, and eventually found one with Positive Surrogacy. The process was basically they propose profiles, you show interest, they set up a meeting between you (parents) and surrogate to chat and set expectations, everything went fine. This is mostly free or a very modest fee.
Then, once the "match" is official, the entire fee for the surrogacy agency is due, which was around 25,000, this should cover the entire journey, coordination with the surrogate, clinics, etc. Well, the match was formalized and paid for, a few weeks after we paid, the surrogate backed out due to personal reasons. The match was formalized end of November, 27 2023 and the surrogate backed out January 2024.
This is where problems started. The agency then sent other profiles they felt were good enough, but folks need to understand that the surrogacy process is very personal and emotional, you can't just bait and switch. We kept asking if the original surrogate would become available again and got evasive answers, but 'hey, here are more profiles'. We want to work with surrogates we feel comfortable with, regardless of agency, we found none of them acceptable.
We've been asking for a refund, they state that once the match is done, the fee is non refundable, which is understandable if the parents want to back out, or there are other major forces, but in this case, basically the match was undone weeks after being formalized and paid for, no work post match was done, ie, the surrogate had no medical procedures (legal contract with surrogate was pending psychological and medical clearance, which she never even scheduled), etc.
It felt much of a bait and switch 'hey, here's an awesome surrogate', we match, pay and then 'oh, sorry, surrogate not available, but we keep the money'. As I said, they offered other surrogate profiles, but none came close to the one we had matched with. Other than finding surrogates and a matching call, the agency basically didn't do any other work for us. read more